His scabbard didn’t accommodate the blade’s curve, so he sunk his hand deep into the sludge and found the belt. His fingers traced it to its clasp and unhooked it. He inhaled sharply and smiled, for the scabbard, too, bore a wealth of gems large and small.
I could buy a farm with this alone!
The sound of the battle raging at the northern wall returned to his ears. Had it been silent until now, or had his ears been shut for a few moments? Suddenly, he could hear the distant clamor of a thousand pieces of metal striking a thousand more. There were shrieks and trampling and foreign commands shouted from above, the frenzied cries of a thousand insects from the treeline behind, and the sound of his own breath and the scritch of his armor against that of the dead beneath him.
He peered up the towering wall and then left and right. He could hear some of his men chuckling among themselves a few yards away.
“Tcht!” Atli commanded, and the men fell silent. The Saracen warriors inside this fortress knew not of their presence and had shifted all defenses to another wall—a foolish maneuver, and the one he and his men had been waiting for.
“Tchk, tchk!” Atli sounded off his command to raise their arms and be counted. To his left he found thirteen hands, to his right twenty-five. Either he had twenty-one dead or they were fighting with the main army—likely half and half. From his position, he searched for several specific faces and found them all—his lieutenants and friends. They, too, lay among the piles of dead soldiers, awaiting his order to advance.
He pulled back his long brown hair, wringing out some of the accumulated sweat and blood, and then tucked it back into the shirt under his armor. He buckled the new scabbard at his waist, sheathed the Saracen blade, and replaced his helm. He heard his men quietly follow suit as they prepared. Atli signaled to them and hissed, “Shwt!” And they began their quiet ascent up the wall.
* * *
“On the horse, Atli,” Endrid warned his friend and captain.
Atli turned only his eyes down the path and spotted the commander, Grim, approaching atop a muscular roan horse. Grim was the worst sort of leader: arrogant, greedy, heartless. He had connived at his role with the Norwegian royals, betraying whomever he must so that he could gain power.
They continued walking the path toward shore as if they hadn’t noticed the commander’s presence. The four of them had just taken turns dunking themselves in the imam’s freshwater bath basin, washing away two weeks of desert grime and the dried blood of three battles. Knowing Grim, this was proof they hadn’t fought at all, let alone won this fortress for him.
Atli stopped in front of the horse. Grim was knitting his bushy eyebrows toward the still-smoking fort, feigning ignorance of their arrival.
“A report, Grim?” Atli offered.
“What? Who are you?” Grim replied with odd feigned dismay.
Atli sighed and raised his brow as if to say, “Truly?”
“Oh . . . what? Is that Atli? Where have you been?”
Endrid and the other two warriors averted their eyes from the debasement that was surely coming. But Atli sought to defuse this ass before he could begin kicking and braying.
“If the general is wondering why my men and I are not coated in our enemies’ blood, it’s because—”
“I’m not interested in excuses, Atli. And don’t presume to know what I’m going to say, until it’s said.”
The two men were silent for a moment as Grim appeared to ponder Atli’s thoughts and Atli fought to control his breathing and expression.
“Tell me, Atli,” Grim finally said, “Are there any young women about, or did they all escape with that initial swarm of flee-ers?”
Atli knew where this would go. He had been hiding the women from the keep in an underground storage room so they might escape after the army moved on to the next fortress. He wondered whether the general was honestly inquiring or whether someone had reported back to him about the women.
“I’m not certain, but have a look at this.” Stepping beside the commander’s horse, he pulled the Damascus blade and scabbard from his waist and held it out flat on his two palms for Grim to see.
The transparent diversion had clearly worked. Grim’s eyes were fairly popping from his hairy face. Atli slid the sword partially from its sheath, and Grim turned his attention to the blade itself.
“What is that pattern?” he asked, referring to the light and dark swirls in the steel.
“It’s called Damascus. Some sort of special forging skill by the Saracen blacksmiths. If you like it, I shall try to find one for you.”
You already have, Atli thought.
“You already have,” Grim said with a haughty smile, and snatched it from Atli’s hands.
Grim watched with thorough pleasure as Atli’s face warped into an expression of shock and anger, clearly struggling to restrain himself.
“I’ll tell you what,” Grim continued. “I’ll need twenty men to stay behind here as a garrison. For such a fine gift, Atli, I shall let you lead them.” He chuckled as he tugged his horse’s reins left and kicked it to return down the hill.
Keep that one far from you, Grim thought.
* * *
Matt handed his ticket to the Colombian gate attendant and noticed her double take on seeing him. He must have looked as haggard as he felt. The plane was smaller than those on the transpacific flights—long and skinny with a single row of seats down each side of the aisle. Well, that was something—he’d get to sit alone this time.
After going through his usual drill of covering up, he took his seat, with Rheese behind him, Fando in front, and Garza across the aisle. He had already given his account of the sword and the battle, to which Rheese had replied with a shrug, “Did you somehow find this information relevant to the task at hand?”
Matt prepped the timer, and Rheese handed him the opal in its velvet pouch.
* * *
Nine-year-old Haeming Grimsson ducked his head against the fierce wind and stinging sleet. With his free hand, he tugged his hood down as he plodded through the snow toward the house. Reaching the covered doorway, he glanced over at the goat shelter. If any died overnight, Pa would be furious. Haeming was supposed to have completed a second wall on the new shelter before another storm hit. Clearly too late now, he watched them huddle against the far end of their solitary wall. The rain and sleet were coming in from the northwest, so the goats on the outside of the group were unprotected. He could hear their bleating over the wind and the dull patter of the sleet hitting the turf roof. Pa had built the old shelter by himself, and it hadn’t stood through last winter. Either intentionally or purely out of sloth or imprudence, Pa hadn’t built a new one in the spring but simply told Haeming to do it by himself—after the first snow had already come. Haeming didn’t know how he should go about such a daunting feat, but he knew better than to ask. Some offenses were forgivable, but questions had never been.
He pulled the rope to unlatch the door, and the wind flung it open. Rain and flecks of ice flew in as he hurried inside to the sound of his father’s curses. As Haeming pitted his frail strength against the door, Grim shouted at him to hurry. The boy finally managed, and slid in the plank to hold it shut. The room hushed but for the crackle of the struggling fire and the howl of the gusts outside.
“Where is the ax?” Grim asked him in that familiar ominous tone.
Haeming hesitated for a second, but then his face brightened—a technique that sometimes defused or distracted his father’s brewing rage.
“I . . . I couldn’t find it, Pa, but look!” Haeming opened his coat and pulled the sword from where he had it clenched under his armpit. “It was on top of the shelf over the picks and shovels!”
Grim gazed at it from the table. He was thinking—scary thoughts, perhaps, but maybe nothing at all. Either way, Haeming wished the sword were an ax.
“We could cut the wood with this, yes?” Haeming persisted with his best smile, but immediately rued his ill-chosen wording. We could
cut the wood with this, he should have said. Grim didn’t allow questions. They were a sort of burden, invariably intended to stump him, to expose him for a fool.
The clay cup flew across the room, shattering against Haeming’s head and sending him reeling to the floor. The sound stayed in his ears, and he wondered whether his skull, too, had been smashed.
“I’ll teach you to keep your greedy hands off a man’s property!” Grim shouted. He rose from the bench and lumbered over to the cowering boy. He raised a thick hand and then stopped, seeing Haeming’s eye peeping up at him from between his arms.
“What, you’ve nothing to beg this time?” he growled.
Haeming’s mind raced. His father was accustomed to hearing him plead for his punishments to exclude certain things. He might beg, “Please, not the face,” or “No more burns, Pa.” But Haeming had observed that Grim’s preference tended toward whatever he was imploring against, so better to be silent and let the elder’s whim take him where it would.
The last thing Haeming wanted his father to know right now was that any beating was preferable to what he most feared: the sentence of sleeping outside again. That cruel punishment had become a frequent favorite of Grim’s since the last wave of biting cold swept over the Reykjavik hillside. Haeming had recently begun to wonder if his father truly wanted him dead. It didn’t appear to be on his mind at present, but Haeming could see the thoughts churning away as the fist hovered above him. Should he say something? A quick “Please, Pa, not in the head,” to guide him toward a more bearable punishment?
The threatening arm dropped to his side, and Grim turned to go back to the table. Was that it, then?
“Outside,” he said quietly, his back still turned.
Haeming could see in his mind the satisfied smile that came with speaking the word, but all he could feel was desperation and dread. He could hold his tongue no more.
“No, please, Pa, no! Please no, not tonight! Tomorrow night, I will . . . for two nights! Please, Pa, it’s too bad outside!” The tears poured from his eyes as he ran to his father and pulled at his clothes. “No, please no, please no, please no . . .”
* * *
Haeming nudged his way into the tight knot of protesting goats and wedged himself between the shelter wall and their warm bodies. He had first run to the toolhouse to retrieve some coarse flax-thread sacks after Grim had refused him so much as a blanket. Though Grim told him to put the sword back where he found it, he had kept it with him. There were thieves all across Iceland, and if they should find him among the goats they had come to steal, well . . . He had heard of boys being taken for slaves on ships or in faraway lands.
As he curled up with the sacks amid the goats, clutching the sheathed sword to his chest, Haeming held out hope for a reprieve from his father. Maybe an exasperated “Get in here boy!” shouted from the door, or nodding off for a moment, only to wake in Pa’s burly arms as he was carried inside. He knew better than to expect any such reprieve tonight, though, as he gripped the rope collar of the nearest goat. Snorts and groans. Noses warmed by slithering tongues.
The sole buck in the herd was Big Dad. He had one normal horn, the other misshapen and curving in on itself. He disliked Haeming and had more than once butted the boy off his feet or bitten him. Whenever Pa left the boy to the elements, Haeming would huddle in with the goats to keep warm. But if Big Dad noticed the intruder’s presence, rather than bite the boy, he would instead nip at the other goats and push them away, leaving Haeming alone and cold. The buck would then stare at him from the new huddle, as if to flaunt his power and warmth.
Haeming reached a hand out into the driving sleet and felt around for another collar. If Big Dad awoke or noticed his presence, he would at least have two goats with him.
But where was Big Dad? He popped his head out from under the sack covering his upper body, and as his head rose above the wiry coat of the doe beside him, he saw the gnarled horn poking up like a broken, wind-scoured branch, just beyond the doe. Big Dad’s head emerged only a second later, and a single eye locked its gaze on Haeming. The boy despised those speckled yellow eyes with the demonic black stripe across the middle. When Big Dad harassed him, Haeming sometimes fantasized about carving them out with a spoon.
The adversaries stared at each other for a moment—the goat’s nostrils encrusted with frozen snot, its expression of understated irritation the same as always. A series of strong gusts buffeted the shelter, and both tucked their heads back down. The goat didn’t appear interested in moving the herd away from the trespasser anytime soon.
Haeming released the collars of the nearby goats and pressed his hands to his frigid ears.
* * *
Matt knew what Rheese would say. Though he was slowly discovering the sword’s chain of possession, he still had nothing solid to offer concerning a treasure hunt in Cuba. With envy, he noted that Garza was asleep beside him. He gets to sleep . . .
He decided to do one more half-hour session before trying to get some rest.
* * *
The smell of smoke and cooking meat reached them well before they summited the ridge. It was surely past midnight—an unusual time to be cooking in a remote Sicilian village. But the nineteen-year-old commander, Haeming, well knew that abnormal mealtimes were almost routine for a traveling force. He sent back an order for quiet and a slower pace, and the units complied in succession down the line. When the crest was within sight, but before the cover of small, leafy trees thinned, Haeming signaled a full stop as he and his second, Ragnarr, shed their loads and hiked the rest of the way up.
Down in the broad river valley, another village lay before them. Haeming’s eyes were fixed, not on the many buildings but on the people, featureless silhouettes lit by staked torches and a large bonfire. Some walked about the clearing while others sat on rocks or wooden chairs. He couldn’t tell whether the bodies lying about were dead or merely sleeping. Some men were shouting, others laughing. Another sound—a woman’s screams—carried above the rest. Between her throaty screams, they could hear some of the words of the shouting men, and they were Norse.
“Just bring it to me, you lazy ass!” floated up from near the fire. It could have come from any of seven or eight men.
“Someone needs to shut that bitch’s mouth,” a different voice said.
The large bonfire, encircled by a low wall of mortared stone in the middle of the clearing, lay beneath a makeshift rack supported by two latticework stands. Atop the rack, Haeming spotted the source of the enticing meat smell. He leaned and whispered in Ragnarr’s ear.
“Look . . . There.”
It took Ragnarr a moment to see what it was, but he eventually caught on. A man in a chair near the fire pit sat tearing meat from a large bone. The bone was a human arm. Above the fire, two or more bodies lay on the wide rack, and the scent of their roasting flesh was wafting right up the hill. The reality of it must have hit Ragnarr, for he gagged and choked, so that Haeming was obliged to clap his hand over the young lieutenant’s mouth as they ducked behind the ridge.
The wind turned for a moment, and they each inhaled a lungful of fresh air, which seemed to help Ragnarr recover. Haeming waited patiently for him to wipe away the tears and take in another deep breath. Ragnarr swallowed and looked up at him. His eyes wandered over Haeming’s face, his mouth, his nose . . .
He was doing it again. Neither had ever spoken a word of it, but Haeming had known for years that Ragnarr’s obvious admiration for him went beyond simple respect and veneration. Haeming frowned and turned away to look down into the canyon again. Ragnarr was an outstanding thinker, a strong warrior, but he needed to find a wife to set him right.
Ragnarr slid back up, a bit further from Haeming this time, and peered down as well.
“I count eleven outside,” Haeming whispered. “Two on the ground I haven’t seen move, though they appear just to be sleeping. It’s your guess how many are inside the structures.”
“No more than two per,” Ragnarr repli
ed. “Depends how many are sharing the screamer, though.”
“As many as forty—more likely twenty-five to thirty.”
Someone below shouted “Atli!” followed by slurred words that Haeming couldn’t catch. He caught Ragnarr’s glance. They were surely thinking the same thing: Atli? The general whose army they had come to reinforce against the Arab conquerors? This was the “most formidable fighting force” King Harald had ever seen?
A dark figure on a stump near one of the huts sat up and replied to the call.
Haeming gazed out over the village, deep in thought, weighing options and calculating outcomes.
“What would have brought them to this?” Ragnarr said. “Inhuman . . . Monsters . . .”
“My guess is large losses and starvation. The village didn’t have enough food, and plenty of wine.”
Haeming slid down from the moonlit ridge, and Ragnarr followed.
“Our strongest archers at distance,” Haeming said when they were halfway back down to the woods.
It was a question. Haeming’s habit confused others, but Ragnarr knew his way. The commander never asked questions in the usual manner—that had been beaten out of him long ago.
“Bondi, Hedinn Ingisson, Brandulf, and the woman, Vigdis. How many do you need?”
“I thought Vigdis a doctor like the others. She is many-skilled.”
“She is, yes.”
“And a thing of beauty, as well, if I recall.”
Ragnarr ignored this last statement. They arrived back at the woods, where the faces of the soldiers in the front lines were alight with anticipation. Haeming gulped down some water from his bag, grabbed an extra dagger from his pack, and tightened up his straps. His fighters had no idea what he had planned, but that would have to do for now.
“Fetch those you mentioned and four more of the best at distance. Split them up: four up here and four on the far side. The latter group must make haste and no sound.”
Ragnarr walked down the line to post the archers. When he was out of sight, Haeming gave a nod to the gawking men at the front and strode off down the path that led to the village.
The Opal (Book 2 of the Matt Turner Series) Page 10
