The Hills of Home (The Song of the Ash Tree Book 2)

by T L Greylock

  “Ergil,” Isolf said, “look around you. This hall boasts a hundred warriors and all have watched men die next to them in the shield wall. Their strength is great, their chests broad, their arms thick. The king has no need of you.” It was unkindly said and not entirely true for there was more than one young warrior who had not yet seen battle. Raef saw Gudrik, leaning on his crutch just to the left of the high table, flinch. Raef frowned at his cousin and rose from his seat.

  “What I need, Ergil, is for you to hone yourself into a weapon of war until your skills are unmatched and your strength is legendary. Then, when you are ready, return to me and I will place you by my side in the shield wall.”

  Ergil looked to the floor again and sucked in his bottom lip. “May I still give you my oath?”

  “If you wish.” Raef took his seat again and Ergil approached the steps. He paused before the first but did not kneel, instead continuing on, nearly tripping on the third step.

  “That is far enough, boy,” Isolf said, his voice a low growl. Raef raised a hand to silence him, but still Ergil came on. When he mounted the top step, he looked straight at Raef and then launched himself through the air between them, a snarl on his face and a knife, flashing suddenly from his sleeve, in his hand.

  Raef and Isolf moved as one, Raef twisting from the chair and his cousin tackling Ergil to the ground. It was over in an instant, the boy pinned beneath Isolf, the knife out of his hand and out of reach, Gudrik lurching forward and falling to his knees in an effort to reach Raef, before the hall full of warriors could react, but then they were on their feet and calling for death.

  “Silence,” Raef called. “Silence.” The noise quieted and Raef looked down at the would-be assassin, wrestled now to a seated position, his arms held behind his back. Ergil seethed, his eyes ripe with hatred, a far cry from the timid boy. He nearly looked a man, but his fury was useless against Isolf’s strong arms.

  Raef turned first to Gudrik, helping him rise to his feet. The skald accepted Raef’s arm, but his face burned with shame and Raef, aware of all the watching eyes, could say nothing, could only grip Gudrik’s hand and know it meant little.

  Leaving Gudrik, Raef gestured for Isolf to bring the boy to his feet and then stepped close, forcing Ergil to accept his stare, though Raef towered above the boy.

  “Let me deal with him,” Isolf said through gritted teeth, a knife of his own now pressed to Ergil’s ribs. “He is beneath you.”

  Raef did not answer his cousin. “What offense have I done you, boy?” His voice was soft but saturated with menace. He grasped Ergil’s neck with one hand, his thumb pressing hard against the boy’s throat. “Answer me.”

  Ergil tried to spit but the phlegm only trickled down his hairless chin. The warriors rumbled with laughter and Ergil’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “You killed my father,” he shouted. “And I have come to avenge him.” The laughter ceased and the hall was quiet.

  “I have killed many men in battle. If we all sought reparation for such deaths, we would walk this earth no more.”

  “I am Ergil Thrainson, and Jarl Thrainson was my father.” The boy’s words washed over Raef and for a moment he was looking at Jarl in his dying moment, not the son. “You robbed him of Valhalla,” Ergil cried, near to tears. Raef was back in the Great-Belly’s hall, the hilt of his knife slick with blood, the blood of Jarl Thrainson, who fell to the floor, staining it red. Jarl’s last act had been to reach for his weapon, to secure a hope of Valhalla, but Raef had denied it. And the whole world knew it.

  “He deserved it,” Raef said, his voice a snarl of rage, the words passing through clenched teeth. The two sons of murdered fathers stared at each other, and Raef saw his own hatred and guilt burning back at him from the depths of Ergil’s eyes. Raef thrust the boy away and took a step back. He gave a nod to Isolf, who dragged Ergil, cursing, from the hall.

  In a matter of moments, it was as if Ergil had never been there. The men returned to their food and drink, their voices low at first, and then rising. Laughter burst forth from one corner, then more, and all was as it had been. Except Raef. His chair, the one carved with the bloody stories of Vannheim, was removed, pushed to one side of the raised platform, and Raef took a seat among his captains at the high table. Food was brought, quail, fish, mutton, venison, steaming bread, and roasted root vegetables, but he only picked at his portions. The ale he drank greedily and his cup was never empty. At length, Isolf returned to the hall and joined the high table. Raef did not catch his eye, did not ask what he had done with the boy, did nothing but swallow down more ale and watch the warriors below.

  When he rose from the table, the hour was late and his head was thick with ale and mead. Music had broken out and the men sang a lurid song, their voices rising to the rafters in disjointed melody. Raef blinked and steadied himself, then, with four of Isolf’s men at his back, strode from the hall. The cold air in the rear passage served to wipe away some of the haze in Raef’s head, but it was with unsteady steps that he sought his chamber. Isolf had stumbled after him and caught up at Raef’s door, his cheeks ale-bright.

  “Does my king want for anything? A woman to warm his bed?”

  Raef thought of soft skin, long hair, and a warm body to share the night with. Someone tender, smooth, and lacking Eira’s sharp edges. But then he felt a surge of nausea, his belly heavy with liquid. “No.” He waved a hand at Isolf. “No, nothing.”

  Isolf grinned. “All the more for me, then.” He grasped Raef with brotherly affection and then they parted ways, the guards remaining outside Raef’s door. In the darkness and silence of his chamber, Raef sprawled on the bed and let his thoughts ebb away on the tide of drunken sleep.

  The morning came roaring upon Raef, the sunlight screaming through the glass of his window, his tongue thick, his throat fuzzy, and his stomach heaving. He tried to lie still, eyes shut to ward off the light, but such concentration only set off a hammer in his head. Groaning, Raef lurched to his feet, eyes only squinting open, splashed water from his basin onto his face, and then vomited clear liquid into the basin. Clenching the edge of the table, Raef felt his stomach heave again, but nothing further came up, leaving Raef panting and dizzy.

  Dropping slowly to the floor, Raef leaned back against his bed and stared up at the ceiling, his head pounding and his rebellious stomach threatening further turmoil. He had been a fool to drink such quantities without eating a morsel of food, but the fault was his alone, even if he would rather blame the boy, Ergil. And in his heart Raef knew he had wanted the oblivion of drink to take him, to shut out Jarl Thrainson and the blood on his hands.

  A servant, a boy of nine, stepped silently into the chamber. He paid his king no mind, avoiding Raef’s outstretched feet as he took the soiled washbasin and emptied the contents into a bucket. He straightened the blankets and furs on Raef’s bed, set a new candle on the table, and then raked the cold ashes from yesterday’s fire into the same bucket. Darting out into the hallway, he returned with a new washbasin and then disappeared as quickly as he had come. All the while, Raef kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, partially out of embarrassment, partially to keep the world around him from spinning.

  At length, the sunlight seemed less violent and Raef ventured to his feet, pleased to find that his stomach had given up its protests. In return, though, his skull was thumping, his knee was cramped with stiffness, and it was a slow march to the hall with fresh, clear-eyed guards on his heels.

  The hall was much as he had last seen it, only with more eyes closed than open. Men slept, faces in the remains of their meals, slumped on the shoulders of their comrades. So great was the disarray, the servants had not yet attempted to begin to clean. A rustling in one corner drew Raef’s attention and he turned to see a blonde woman, a shieldmaiden whose name had slipped under the hammer in his brain, stretch and disentangle herself from the sleepy embrace of a black-bearded warrior. She was naked but for a pair of old boots and she squinted at Raef, no shame in her nakedness or drunkenn
ess. With a yawn, she tugged a cloak over her shoulders, exposing the bare chest of her unconscious companion in the process, and went back to sleep.

  Raef surveyed the disaster that was his hall, found he could not stomach it, and went out the wide wooden doors. Only there, under the blue winter sky, did he feel he could speak and he turned to one of the guards.

  “Find Ulli,” Raef said, keeping his voice quiet for the sake of his own head. “I want this,” he nodded back at the hall, “taken care of by the time the sun reaches its peak. And tell him there will be no feast this night.” The guard scurried off and Raef turned to another. “Bring bread and water.”

  “Here, lord?”

  “Yes, I will eat out here.” Raef did not much feel like consuming anything, but he knew he had to. Within the span of twenty slow, deep breaths, the second guard had returned, bearing a tray and Raef sat down on the stone steps and convinced himself to nibble on the loaf of bread. The guards withdrew to the doors, leaving him to eat in peace.

  It was there that Eira found him. He spotted her as she approached the Vestrhall on foot but he continued to gnaw on the loaf, sipping water here and there, until she stood before him, their eyes nearly level.

  “What do you want?” The sun was behind her but Raef was trying hard not to squint.

  “To make my oath, of course.”

  “I think I have had my fill of oaths.”

  “You do not wish to be king? It has only been five days.” If it was an attempt to make him smile, it did not succeed.

  “You would know what I wished if you had been here.”

  She said nothing at first, gave no explanation for her absence, as though daring him to demand an answer. Then she came close and sat sideways on the step below him. “Forgive me,” she said. Her hair fell away from her face as she looked up at him. He looked into her eyes and took a deep breath, for she smelled of green grass and heather on the moors and pine trees in high summer. All of which was impossible under the shroud of winter, and yet he breathed it in, his eyes drawn to the wildness in hers, tempered, it seemed, by a promise of spring. And Raef found himself taking her hand in his, the loaf of bread forgotten, the pounding in his head reduced to a gentle swell of the ocean tide.

  Raef brushed her chin with his thumb and touched a finger to her earlobe, then brought his face close to hers. He paused, taking in every tiny feature of her face, the delicate scar above her eyebrow, the flecks of deep blue in her grey irises, the curve of her cheekbone, and it was Eira who brought her lips up to his. It seemed to Raef the kiss could heal him, mind and body, but it was all too fleeting for he had a prisoner to visit.

  Raef rose, Eira’s hand slipping from his, and turned to the guards. “Take me to the boy,” he said.

  Ergil was awake but listless when Raef entered the locked room in the stable Isolf had confined him to. His head was rolled to one side and his lips were parted and chapped. He had been crying, Raef could tell, sobbing even. His cheeks were dry but streaked with the remnants of tears and half-dried snot hung from his nose, out of reach of his bound hands. A welt had formed on his forehead and a cut blossomed under one eye, no doubt dispensed by Isolf. At Raef’s entrance, he stirred only a little, but when Raef squatted down and the boy caught sight of his visitor, he scrambled back as best he could, scratching through the straw, until his back was against the wall. The hatred flashed into his face at the same instant and Raef could see the night in the cell had done nothing to quell it.

  “I am going to speak, and you are going to listen. If you do not, I will instruct my cousin to cut off your ears and then the tiny thing between your legs, which he will gladly feed to the pigs. Do you understand? You need only nod.”

  Ergil shivered with anger but there was fear there, too, and he gave a reluctant nod.

  “You have a grievance against me and I will not deny I am the cause of your grief and anger. We will deal with that in time. What we will deal with now is the reason for your father’s death. He died because he was protecting someone, someone who gave him an order that he carried out. That someone watched me kill your father. That someone stood by and did nothing while a man under his command was deprived of Valhalla. Yes, I wielded the blade, but surely some fault lies with this person who sacrificed your father to save his own skin?”

  The boy looked suspicious but he was still listening and Raef continued.

  “I seek this coward, Ergil, and I have made a solemn vow to find him, for he is responsible for the death of my father, too. Perhaps you can tell me who this man might be?”

  Ergil shook his head, lips clenched tight.

  “Your father was a warrior of Finngale, bound to the Hammerling, but the Hammerling is not the man I seek. Who were your father’s friends? Is your mother from Finngale, too?”

  Ergil muttered something that Raef could not make out.

  “Speak clearly, boy, or I will call for a knife.”

  Ergil glared at Raef but repeated his words. “My father was not of Finngale, nor my mother.”

  Raef frowned. “Tell me more.”

  Ergil grimaced. “There is nothing to tell. They came to Finngale when I was born and my father pledged to the Hammerling.”

  Raef’s heart began to beat faster but he kept his voice steady. “What did they call home before Finngale?”

  “It was no home!” Ergil burst out, fresh tears threatening to spill onto his cheeks. “They were chased out by their own kin.”

  Raef fought for patience. “Odin’s eye, answer my question!”

  Ergil sniffed, the snot running anew and a bubble of spit forming in the corner of his mouth. “Ruderk. My father was born in Ruderk.”

  NINETEEN

  Raef stared at Ergil Thrainson, his heart in his ears.

  “Say it again.”

  Ergil’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “My father was born in Ruderk. As was my mother.”

  “Your father was sworn to Hauk of Ruderk?”

  Ergil nodded, then bit down on his bottom lip. “Until my mother’s family forced them to flee and seek a new home.”

  Raef hardly heard so intent was he on Ergil’s revelation. It raced through him, a rock thrown into a still pool, ripples spreading unhindered. He bit back his thoughts and focused on Ergil.

  “I meant what I said. Go home. Plant crops. Help your mother. Grow strong. And if, when you are older, you still find that vengeance burns as bright as it does this day, come to me and we will settle this score with blood. I swear it.” It was both a threat and an invitation, for Raef understood what surged in Ergil’s veins.

  “You are not going to kill me?”

  “No, not even keep you prisoner, my shame shut away from the world. I will not fight you. Not now. A man must live before he goes to his death and you have not lived. But neither will I deny you that which I seek for myself. Heed my words, Ergil Thrainson, and return to me some day if that is your wish.”

  “What if you die before that day?”

  Raef shrugged. “Then you will either accept that you will not have your vengeance, or not. The choice is yours and the fate that follows it will be of your creation, not mine.” Raef got to his feet and called for the guard outside the door. “Let him loose.”

  “Are you mad?” It was not the guard who questioned Raef, but Isolf, who was rounding the corner. “The boy must die.”

  “No, Isolf. Brother,” Raef added in a hard voice when he saw disobedience in Isolf’s face. “We have reached an understanding, and he is being allowed to return, unmolested, to Finngale. Save your breath. You will not convince me to do otherwise.”

  Isolf frowned, but his protest died on his lips. “As you wish. I only seek to protect you.”

  Raef softened and settled a hand on Isolf’s shoulder. “I know.” But his mind was already elsewhere for the ripples caused by Ergil had grown to a great wave and it was thrashing inside him, clamoring for release. Raef turned from his cousin and sought the winter sun. But it was Vakre he found.

  T
he son of Loki had a doe slung over one shoulder, his bow in his free hand, and he and Eira spoke in quiet voices near the stables. For a moment, when their eyes met, there was a flicker of unease, a remnant of their last meeting. Raef felt it in himself and saw it in Vakre’s eyes. Vakre let the doe fall to the ground.

  “I heard what happened,” Vakre said. “The boy got close.”

  “If that is the price for what he just revealed to me, I would gladly pay it a thousand times again.”

  Vakre’s eyes narrowed and Eira looked to Raef with sudden interest, asking, “What do you mean?”

  “We thought Jarl Thrainson a warrior of Finngale and he was, but not always. He was born elsewhere and loyal to a lord other than the Hammerling. By unhappy chance, he was forced to flee his home and start a new life, but I think in his heart he remained true to his first master. Perhaps the promised price for my father’s death was triumph over Jarl’s old enemies, so that he might return home and regain his honor.” Raef felt a tremor in his chest as he said the words aloud. “I know who ordered my father’s murder. I know the name of the scheming, treacherous, false friend who extended his hand to my father while plotting his death.”

  “Who?”

  “Hauk of Ruderk.”

  Vakre’s expression remained calm. “You are certain?”

  “Can it be other than the truth?” Raef heard his voice rise and Vakre raised his hand.

  “I do not know, Raef,” Vakre said, his own voice steady, “but what tie do you have between Jarl and Hauk other than this shared past?”

  “Is it not enough?”

  “This is not the first time you believed you knew who was responsible for your father’s death. Remember the Hammerling, Raef, remember what your hasty wrath wrought.”

  “What would you have me do? Live out my days waiting for a confession? The sword-age is coming, Vakre. The storm is upon us and the world of men trembles beneath us. I will not sit back and wait for all to crumble, not when I know the truth in my heart of hearts, and not while my father’s blood still runs in my veins.” Spinning on his heel, Raef turned his back on Vakre and Eira, jaw clenched against the sudden knot of agony in his knee. Ignoring all in his path, Raef readied his horse, mounted, and left the hall behind.