The Wolves of Dumnonia Saga Box Set

by Peter Fox

  ‘Excellent work boys. All ahead now. Alrik, grow some eyes. You too Ingrith. I didn’t bring you along just to look pretty.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Alrik called back. ‘We didn’t see that one.’

  Sigvald threw a glance over his shoulder at his wife. Helga, quite untroubled by the whole affair, busied herself with her knitting under the light of a small lamp that hung from the sternpost.

  ‘You could try sailing a little less erratically dear,’ she said without looking up. ‘You’re ruining my stitch.’

  ‘The captain offers his humble apologies. Perhaps madam would prefer to walk?’

  Helga smiled, her bone needles clacking quietly as she worked. ‘There’s no need to be churlish dear.’

  Sigvald rubbed his gloved hands together and stamped on the deck. By thunder, it’s cold, he thought. If the temperature keeps dropping like this, we will be able to walk. Sigvald could not remember a time when the waterways had iced over, but if this didn’t let up, the fjords would be frozen solid before the week was out. Something occurred to him, and he swung around and frowned at his wife. ‘Are you sure you should be doing that on board?’ He thrust his chin out at her knitting. It was well known that if a woman knitted on her doorstep while the snow still lay deep on the ground, winter would last longer, and her family would suffer most terribly for it.

  Helga clicked her tongue. ‘I know the danger in such things husband, but this is a longship, and I’ve not yet heard of a connection between worsening weather and needlework.’

  ‘That’s because no sensible person would do it!’ Sigvald protested. It was bad enough that they had embarked on this journey in the first place. Why tempt the Gods any more than necessary?

  ‘Calm down, Sigvald. It’s a lovely clear night. What could go wrong?’

  At that very moment, Sigvald became aware of dampness on his face. Then he noticed Alrik’s and Ingrith’s silhouettes blur at the edges, and the flames in the braziers developed a faint halo. Was the picture before him fading, or was it his imagination? The rhythmic clickety-clack of Helga’s needles came to a stop.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said from her seat behind him.

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’ Sigvald murmured darkly, fully intent on snatching the cursed implements from his wife’s hands and tossing them overboard, but he had no need. Helga was already stuffing her knitting back into her little leather bag. She threw him an apologetic wince then sat with her hands in her lap, looking decidedly embarrassed.

  Sigvald muttered a low curse and waved his hands at the men to keep rowing. Perhaps it was just a little patch.

  The mist grew thicker. ‘A curse upon you, Hod,’ he snapped at the blind God of Winter, ordering the men to a halt. He turned to his wife. ‘Well, we can safely say that the principle applies equally well to longships as it does doorsteps.’ He stepped down onto the deck and strode quickly up to where his daughter and nephew stood at the bow. ‘Tell me you can still see where we’re going.’

  Alrik looked down at him, amused. ‘Okay. We can still see where we’re going.’

  ‘Works for me,’ Sigvald said. He turned to go back to the tiller.

  ‘Um, uncle,’ Alrik called after him. ‘Maybe you should look at this.’ Alrik pointed at the leading edge of the prow. A thin layer of ice glistened in the soft orange light of the braziers where the spray had solidified in the freezing air.

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ Sigvald said lightly. ‘We’ll keep going and see what happens. Eyes peeled. I’m relying on you two.’

  Sigvald made his way back to the tiller, taking care to avoid Gormond’s petrified stare. So you were right, Sigvald thought darkly. He took hold of the tiller and gave the order to resume rowing.

  ‘It this wise, dear?’ Helga wondered. ‘You do recall what happened the last time you ventured out into a mist, don’t you?’

  ‘That was a long time ago, and this is different,’ Sigvald growled. Anyway, it had been Thorvald’s longship back then, not his.

  ‘Alrik may have good eyesight, but even he can’t find his way through a black mist at night.’

  Black mist. Sigvald had avoided naming it in the hope that it might turn out to be something else. He frowned into the air ahead of them, wondering what to do. Tiny beads of fog hung motionless in a deadly shroud in the frozen air. Any movement at all through it and it collected on the surfaces that came into contact with it, gradually building up in thickening layers of ice until… Sigvald brushed the thought away and checked that the axes still lay in the trunk by the mast. ‘We have no choice,’ he rumbled. They rowed on.

  ‘Lights!’ Alrik called soon afterwards. ‘My place, I think.’

  The oarsmen slowed their strokes and turned to look in the direction that Alrik pointed. A distant gathering of yellow and orange illuminations flickered eerily in the mist, like stars shrouded by a veil of silk. They seemed to float above the water a short distance away, but all those aboard knew that Alrik’s home lay some distance up the adjoining arm. The sounds of a busy settlement making ready for the evening drifted across the water, the voices of the inhabitants ringing so clearly that they might have been standing on the deck. Then the sounds disappeared as if swallowed again by the mist.

  ‘Lord!’ Gormond had found his tongue. ‘We must pull into Jarl Bardi’s homestead while we have a chance. We can continue tomorrow when it is light.’

  ‘Gormond, if you want to step off here, go right ahead. I won’t try to stop you.’

  ‘He does have a point dear,’ Helga interrupted. ‘Perhaps we should go to my brother’s and wait until conditions improve. It’s bitterly cold, and this won’t be doing any good for the slaves.’

  ‘No,’ Sigvald replied. ‘We may already have left it too late as it is. It’s not that much further now. We must go on.’

  He waved at the men, and the ship moved on, slowly at first as they reluctantly pulled away from their last hope of salvation.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Bardisby, Sognefjorden, Norvegr

  Away on the shore, Alrik’s father stared into the mist, wondering what form of apparition he and his fellow steaders witnessed. His swordsman Thorkel stood beside him, his hand resting uneasily on his hilt. Most of the slaves had already fled in fright, but Bardi knew he must show leadership lest the entire settlement panic. It was a difficult feat to manage, as his own instincts warned him to seek shelter.

  ‘It sounds like a ship,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘Running under oar.’

  ‘A ghost ship, to be sure,’ one of the men gathered by the shore said. ‘Perhaps it is the first of the longships lost to Aegir this autumn, returning to avenge their souls.’

  A murmur of alarm rippled through the gathering, but Bardi held up his hand. ‘Remain calm,’ he said, trying to ignore the fact that it had been his first thought too. ‘We are warriors, remember? Besides, it’s heading seawards, so it can’t be a returning ship. If anything, I’d say they are passing us by.’

  ‘Then who is it, Lord?’ one of the men asked. ‘Should we gather firebrands? They will surely fear the flames and light.’

  In answer to that question, a burst of conversation suddenly drifted across the water from the ship. Sigvald’s voice was clearly recognisable, as was Helga’s.

  ‘What in the name of Sköll are they doing out there?’ Bardi said, amazed.

  ‘They are impostors, surely,’ another of the men cried. ‘No sane man would be out in this weather.’

  Bardi looked at the blacksmith, not at all convinced the burly man was mistaken. It would indeed be the perfect ruse: fool them into believing their friends were in trouble so that when Bardi set out to investigate, he and his men would be trapped and eaten. Worse still, their bodies could be stolen by the monsters so that they could then trick the women and children into letting them into their houses. But what if he was wrong? What if it was Sigvald?

  As if prompted by his own musing, Alrik’s voice drifted into hearing, followed by laughter. Alrik?
Laughter? Bardi came to a decision. ‘Get my longship out, and be quick about it.’

  ‘But Lord, what if they are–’

  ‘Do it!’ Bardi barked, deciding there must be a sound explanation for this. That said, better safe than sorry, he thought. He turned to Thorkel. ‘Gather the women, children and the frail into the fire-hall and lock the door behind you. Do not open it again until daylight. Most especially do not open it for me or any of the men, even if we plead for our lives, for it could be a trick. Quickly now.’

  Thorkel hurried off whilst the remaining men looked nervously at their jarl, having just been consigned to a horrible death at the hands of the unnameable ghouls of the night.

  ‘Are you Vikings or mice?’ Bardi snapped at them. ‘Get the Osprey ready for oar! And find something to keep the ice at bay. Hurry!’

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Had he known the futility of that last command, Bardi may not have set sail at all. Ice was building up on the Vixen at an alarming rate, and the braziers did little to impede it. Sigvald ordered the fires stoked as hot as prudence allowed, but still the shield rails and prow grew heavy with ice. Every exposed surface provided an opportunity for the ice to take hold, and before long, the mast had been transformed into a gleaming crystal cylinder, thrusting up into the gloom like Tyr’s war-spear. Even the slaves had fallen victim to the fog; ice clung to the oar shafts, adding to their weight and making them difficult to wield. The longship sank lower and lower in the water as the weight of the mist-borne terror bore them ever closer to Aegir’s hungry grasp.

  Sigvald looked to his wife, who nodded at him reluctantly. They had no choice. The Jarl stepped down onto the deck and opened the chest that sat by the mast. He handed a hatchet each to Alrik and Ingrith, gave one to Helga, and chose the largest axe for himself. They set to work, chopping at the ice that coated the timbers. Sigvald winced as they hacked at Helga’s beautiful longship, all the while aware of Helga’s tight-lipped presence beside him as she too, hewed at her pride and joy. The Gods help me if this turns out to be a false alarm, he thought grimly.

  To add to his misery, the ice melted when it came into contact with the Vixen’s human occupants. It dampened their clothes and wet their hair and faces, sucking the heat from their bodies. Sigvald shivered. Damn you Ull! What a fool I will look when we arrive at Thorvald’s to find the old sod snuggled up in bed. He certainly won’t thank me when he’s woken in the middle of the night to find his friends and a hoard of cold and angry slaves dripping on his doorstep.

  ‘Husband? Is that another ship I can hear?’

  The chieftain turned to his wife, surprised, but he too heard the unmistakable sound of oars breaking water. An orange glow appeared to their left, then moments later the prow of a longship materialised out of the mist. ‘Who goes there?’ came a stern command from its prow.

  ‘It’s me,’ Sigvald called, recognising his brother-in-law’s voice if not his form.

  As the Osprey drew slowly alongside, Sigvald saw that it was indeed Bardi, standing resolutely at the prow, his left hand resting firmly on the hilt of his sword, his other on his hip.

  ‘You claim to be Sigvald?’ Bardi asked suspiciously, careful to ensure that the Osprey maintained a safe distance from the Vixen. ‘Then why are you out on a night like this?’

  Sigvald frowned at Bardi’s odd tone, then suddenly he understood, his realisation corroborated by the nervous expressions on the crew’s faces: the man thought they were monsters. He burst out laughing. ‘If I was Jörmungand, I’d have eaten you by now.’

  ‘This is no time for sarcasm Sigvald,’ Bardi replied angrily, evidently satisfied that Sigvald was not, in fact, a ghoulish doppelgänger. ‘It’s dark, and this is a black mist.’ He noticed something behind Sigvald and his eyes narrowed. ‘And I trust that is not Alrik standing watch at your prow. You wouldn’t be so irresponsible as to endanger my son by involving him in this mad jaunt?’

  ‘Not at all. That’s just a spectre who’s taken on Alrik’s appearance. A remarkable resemblance too, I think you’ll agree.’ Bardi began to bluster in protest, so Sigvald quickly added, his tone serious now, ‘we’re going over to Thorvald’s.’

  ‘Why in Odin’s good graces can’t it wait until daylight?’

  Sigvald looked over at his brother-in-law, unable to resist a taunt. ‘What’s troubling you, Bardi? It’s just a little bit of fog.’

  ‘You are a reckless vagrant, Sigvald,’ Bardi bristled. ‘I want Alrik on the Osprey now.’

  ‘Brother,’ Helga interjected, casting her husband a stern glare. ‘There is truth behind my husband’s words. Something has happened to Thorvald and Rathulf; Sigvald has had a vision. Will you not come with us? Your company would be most welcome.’

  Bardi held his sister’s gaze for a long time before answering. ‘A vision,’ he said sardonically. ‘Very well, against my better judgement I shall accompany you, but know that I do this through my duty to you as your brother. This journey is madness, and I am sure it will also prove to be pointless.’

  The two longships made their way down the fjord, with the Vixen leading the way. Before long, Bardi’s men were following Sigvald’s lead and were forced to hack away at the ice. Alrik had stayed aboard Helga’s Drakkar against his father’s wishes, claiming that his uncle needed his eyes. Despite the ever-present threat of sinking, they made good progress, not even missing a single turn, and at last, they were on the final leg towards Thorvald’s garth.

  They passed out of the fog in a single oar-stroke to find themselves suddenly bathed in crisp starlight. Sigvald let out a surprised grunt and glanced back at Bardi’s ship. It was too dark to clearly see Bardi’s face, but Sigvald could well imagine his scornful expression. ‘I do hope Thorvald has a good stock of mead,’ Bardi said. ‘He’ll be little pleased when we all arrive on his doorstep unannounced. Vision indeed.’

  By thunder you’re an irritating man, Sigvald thought darkly. He peered at the head of the fjord, hoping that all would become clear, but as they drew towards the shore, his worst fears were realised. An empty valley, its snow-covered walls and floor glowing palely in the starlight met them. No homestead could be seen; indeed no form of habitation at all.

  Bardi’s expletive curse caused Sigvald to wince. ‘You’ve taken us into the wrong arm, heimskingi! Where did you learn to navigate? By the whiskers of Thor, I must be mad following you about like a nanny goat. As a matter of fact, it’s a pity we didn’t get to Thorvald’s because he’d know how to get us out of this mess.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘I am returning home. Alrik, come aboard this instant. You would also be wise to join me, sister, and you too Ingrith.’

  ‘I’ll do nothing of the sort,’ Helga snapped. ‘Stop acting like a child, brother. Sigvald has brought us safely through the mist, has he not?’

  ‘Yes, and to what? My crew and I are soaked through, and the worst of it is that we now have to find our way back through that accursed fog to get home.’ He swore again, then his expression changed. ‘But given your reputation around ships, I suppose we can be grateful that both drakkars are still afloat. Perhaps a more appropriate nickname would be Sigvald the Blind.’

  Sigvald glared at his brother-in-law, but the fact remained that it was true. I have made a fool of myself, he thought, defeated. The tale of my ineptitude will be on everyone’s lips before this winter is out.

  ‘Come, dear,’ Helga said. ‘We might as well turn back and wait out the night at my brother’s. And don’t be so hard on yourself; these are not exactly the most favourable conditions for navigating. Bardi’s only making all this fuss because he’s scared of his monsters. With any luck, the sky will continue to clear, and we’ll have the sun to warm our backs tomorrow.’

  ‘But I’m sure this is the right dale,’ Sigvald said, confused. How could I have gotten lost in my own fjord? Curse you Njörd. You were supposed to be my guide.

  ‘Sigvald,’ Helga said gently. ‘We have done all we can. We are not equipped to spend a night out in t
his cold. We must go back.’

  Sigvald closed his eyes, but the vision was still there, clear and unchanged. I don’t understand, he thought. What am I missing? He cursed himself for his dull wits. The answer lay at the tip of his tongue, but how could he think clearly with the mocking eyes of Bardi and his crew looking upon him? He sighed, unable to find the answer.

  ‘Very well,’ he grumbled at last, turning his back on the shore. ‘Let’s go home.’

  7. The plains of Niflheim

  Thorvaldsby, Aurlandsfjorden, Norvegr

  Rathulf slowly opened his eyes. It took enormous effort, but when he finally looked about him, he saw that he stood in the midst of a barren, icy landscape. Contorted blocks of ice thrust upwards from the ground in giant, angular columns. Dry snow lay in drifts around them, spreading in finger-like fans in their lee. Sol and Mani did not show their faces here, and nor could Rathulf see any stars. Instead, a grey, sullen expanse of low-hanging cloud stretched from horizon to horizon. The ground beneath his feet was devoid of any form of life, and the air held a penetrating chill that reached deep into his body and drained him of all warmth. What is this place? he wondered. A middle land, between Earth and Asgard, or worse, Niflheim: the lowermost domain of the dead, realm of the Goddess Hel, where darkness and all manner of terror reign?

  Rathulf stood rigid, too frightened to move and barely able to breathe. He had heard tell of this place from the oracles and mystics. Those old crones travelled from garth to garth, imparting their wisdom and divinations to the farming folk of Norvegr for the price of lodging or a gift of silver or other wares should they bring good fortune upon a household. Rathulf’s memories of those nights spent gathered around the hearth fire were as vivid to him now as the grim descriptions of Náströnd: the Shore of Corpses. Here Norsefolk who died an inglorious death from old age, sickness or mishap were washed up to be eaten by the giant serpent Nidhogg. Was this to be Rathulf’s fate? Did he wander the icy wastelands of Niflheim, at any moment to be torn apart by the sword-sharp fangs of Nidhogg or another of the many hideous creatures that prowled this land? But where were the other dead? Why was he alone in this place? Had they been taken already? He glanced nervously to either side and then over his shoulder, knowing that any one of those grotesque piles of ice could be hiding a monster, but he saw nothing and no one. Nor could he find any sign of a shoreline in whose shallows Nidhogg might be waiting.