Daughter of the Wind

by Michael Cadnum

  Hego hurried after this small band of raiders. He polished Head-Biter against the rough wool of his tunic and continued to think over the events of this night. He followed the band through the numbing cold of Stag Brook. How could they move so quickly? These strangers were athletes, long-legged and faster than any Ardfolk Hego had ever heard of. Hego had to run. Even so, they were well ahead of him, climbing up past the elf cave, higher, through the frost-crumbled, mossy rock of the mountain trail, speaking not a word that Hego could make out.

  When one of them turned to survey the trail behind them, Hego melted into the shadows.

  Not long afterward, as the first birds were stirring, one of the raiders turned again, and this time Hego was slow in hiding. On one side of the path was patchy snow, and on the other side a bank of ice, fanged with icicles. Hego knelt where he was, midpath.

  The stranger stared, a long stone’s throw ahead on the trail.

  “What did you hear?” a voice asked, a foreign accent.

  There was a muttered answer, and then the rear guard turned and hurried after their fellows, leather armor creaking, feet splashing snowmelt all the way up the mountain ridge.

  “Donsk!”

  Hego said the word aloud, before he could shut his mouth, and one of the guards turned again, the first-dawn light reflected off the nasal-guard armor of his helmet.

  Of course these weren’t Ardmen—the thought had been ridiculous.

  These men were Danes.

  It all came back to Hego now, as he rose and sprinted to keep pace with the band.

  He recalled how he woke, went out to drink well water, and met a sling stone with his head. No wonder he was bleeding! He should turn back to gather the village. There was no way one man could take on an entire band of sly, leather-armored Danes.

  Not that Danes were feared, individually, the way one fears a berserker, or a veteran fighter like Trygg Two-Nose. Danes were famous for their rich foods, cow’s milk cheeses, and pickled fish and bread. Danish bread was kneaded wheat dough, made with yeast and baked in loaves, not the hardy flatbread of northern villages. And they were famous for their treachery, fighting in trained armies with battle formations, always outflanking or using false retreats, hurling projectiles, and rarely giving way to tough-armed, sword-to-shield combat.

  It was this very subtlety Hego knew he could not match. Matched with a normal warrior, Hego would teach him how to fight. He could outwrestle most men, but in the games of strategy, moving walrus-ivory pieces around to trap the opposing king, Hego had always accepted the affectionate consolation of his betters.

  There was no time to go back for help. He hurried after his enemy.

  Hego was breathing hard, and his head was bleeding again. The blood leaked into his swollen eye, but since this eye could not see well in any event, there was no great loss of vision. But Hego had sat long nights hearing stories about men foolish enough to take on too many opponents at once. Such fighters ended up in battle poems, but their flesh fed the crows.

  He was on the slope high above the village now, the air cold in his lungs. This is how I will enter a battle verse, he thought. Alone on the far side of the great Mount High-Seat he lifted his ax of noble name.

  Hego slipped on the icy trail, climbed to his feet, and made haste. He would call upon Thor at the last moment, the god of the strong arm and the boundary stone, the god who hates thieves and strengthens the man who defends his friends.

  Hego stumbled, exhausted, crawling into the shadow of a boulder.

  Their ships within view, the Danes were close enough to safety to catch a breath, sharing a drink from a goatskin sack. Hego crouched, breathing hard, leaning against a lichen-crusted boulder.

  When Hego saw the Danes’ captive, far below on the trail, he took a sharp breath and a firmer grip on Head-Splitter. Tears of outrage blinded him, and he had to wipe his good eye on his sleeve to clear his vision.

  Hallgerd shook down her long, bright hair, and Hego cursed these Danes before Odin for setting their hands on the jarl’s daughter. She was speaking to them, proud of bearing, Hego could see that, although he could not make out her words.

  He could not linger here, crouching against the lichen-crusted rock. The wily Danes were glancing around, weary as they were, and soon someone would spy him, peeking out in his craftless, clumsy way.

  Hego stepped out from behind the boulder.

  He marched down the slope, his battle-ax in his grip, crying out before Thor for the mighty god’s help. And a Dane, a red-bearded man, stirred, and climbed toward him, followed by a few others, all of them drawing swords, a few of them lifting skirmish shields.

  The red-bearded attacker ran uphill, with easy, self-assured strides. He lifted his sword.

  Hego sliced the shield through with one blow, and cut into the bone. Hego was singing. It was what he had been taught around the firelight, battle song giving courage to arm and ax. The red-bearded Dane struck out with his sword, a skilled counterattack, and Hego took a step back and planted his feet.

  He killed the red-bearded man, clove his head from the crest of the helmet to the jaw.

  And then, with Hallgerd crying out from below, the other armed men closed around him. Far outnumbered, fighting hard, Hego calculated how many he would take with him before he died.

  Eleven

  Hego was in the lead, and this surprised Hallgerd.

  Indeed, not only was Hego leading the attack, no one else was following him.

  The young man had polished an amulet for Hallgerd just a week past. Hego was always shy around the young woman, his voice soft, his eyes downcast. The jarl always sent his favorite blades to be quickened by the young man’s whetstone. Every farmer was fond of Hego, but Hallgerd doubted that this youth was destined to earn his place in a heroic poem, and she was afraid for her good-hearted neighbor’s life.

  She could not bear to watch the fighting high above on the mountain trail.

  And yet she did.

  The mountain path wending upward behind Hego was empty, a long slope of shadows and lingering ridges of snow. Hallgerd could not deceive herself. An impossible consideration could not be denied any longer.

  Hego was entirely alone.

  For the first time Hallgerd considered something unthinkable, something for which no amount of war lore or Spjothof legend prepared her: Perhaps her village had been devastated by these raiders. Maybe Hego alone had survived to press the pursuit.

  Hego’s song grew louder, the tune more erratic as he swung his battle-ax, chanting the poem of Thor before the mountain immortals, drinking from an ale horn the source of which was, unknown to the Thunder God, the entire blue sea. It was a poignant and powerful legend—the story of how even the great Thor could be deceived. Facing an unfathomable challenge, the mighty god had proceeded, swallow by swallow, to diminish the seas of earth by two fingers, and then half a hand, and more, failing the challenge but chilling the mountain gods with the sight of his determined strength. Spjotmen treasured this chant for moments of crisis, when the Norns of fate set an overwhelming enemy before them.

  Before Hallgerd could offer a prayer for Hego’s life, Olaf threw her over his shoulder and ran down the rocky slope, stones tumbling after them, a wet, noisy landslide of sharp rocks and ice melt.

  Olaf’s leather-booted feet thudded across a gangplank, and he flung her onto a large red embroidered cushion. Hallgerd could feel the shapes and textures of feathers within the soft pillow, and she stood up at once when she saw a batr—a small ship’s boat—tied up beside the twenty-bench warship. Olaf gave a whistle, and a guard rose from within the boat. As Olaf instructed the young guard on some insufficiency in the knots that connected the small craft, Hallgerd looked around for a weapon heavy enough to crush the big man’s skull.

  This ship was richly carved along the sides, and decorated with bright hues, yellow, blue, and scarlet. The rowing benches were furnished with woolen blankets, and baskets of round cheeses were snugly stored in the stern. T
he ships that sailed out of Spjothof were never so well provisioned, and paint was hard to come by.

  Hego’s voice was silent now—she did not have to ask herself why.

  Olaf was calling to her, telling her the eiderdown pillow was not as soft as she deserved but it was the best they could offer for now.

  What Hallgerd wanted was a sword. Before she could find such a weapon the roar of several voices, both exultant and weary, reached the fjord from the mountain, reverberating throughout the fjord. From a cleft in the peaks known as Mjollnir-Rest, after Thor’s great hammer, dozens of men in leather armor were streaming, running hard.

  This pass in the mountains behind Spjothof was used only occasionally, by hunters of deer and wild goat. No invader had ever used it. Her neighbors had always told one another, half-believing it, that the god’s great hammer rested there, protecting the village.

  Each Dane wore a metal-studded helmet. Many boasted a bronze nasal-flange that extended down to offer protection to the face, and although many of the shields were badly hacked, only two or three men were wounded, the sort of superficial wounds that warriors made a point of ignoring.

  This small army sprinted, stumbling and sweating, down the trail, and Hallgerd was sick with her continuing fear. No Spjotmen followed this armored, bristling band of fighters, and except for Hego and his ax, no force from Hallgerd’s village showed itself.

  If her father had breath in his body and blood in his veins, she knew he would be right behind this army of Danes, cutting them down as they ran. For the first time she let herself imagine in detail what must have happened as the large, diversionary attack drew the villagers into the dawn-gilded meadow.

  Her father bleeding—too badly injured to lead a pursuit.

  Or worse. She did not let this new, sickening fear take shape in her mind.

  But it did anyway, against her will—the image of her father slain, his face pale and bloodless under the morning sky.

  The small band of her captors joined this large body of men. Thrand in the lead, they stumbled, sweating, down to the ships. On the foot-trampled trail above, Hallgerd caught no sign of Hego’s body. She prayed to the spirits that swept up fallen warriors and carried them to the Hall of the Slain. With tears in her eyes, she silently beseeched the immortals to seat Hego at the highest ale bench among the heroes of legend.

  Oars were run out into the still, deep fjord, and the reflection of the surrounding mountains quaked and vanished as the white pine shafts sang through the oar holes and stirred the water.

  Hallgerd’s voice rang out.

  It echoed from mountain to mountain, calling for her father, for her neighbors, and for the gods to come to the aid of her village.

  Twelve

  Gauk dreamed he was at home, hearth smoke stinging his eyes.

  Opir, the village boaster, was saying that he could kill a she-bear twice as big as the one Gauk had slain, and Gauk’s mother was challenging him jokingly, daring him to sail forth and give it a try. All the villagers were laughing, Snorri joining in, Gauk tasting the sweetest ale, and drinking.

  Drinking deeply, filled with a thankful glow.

  Gauk opened his eyes.

  He was on the ice. He did not allow himself to dwell upon the starkly disheartening emotions this realization stirred in him.

  He stood at once, stiff from the cold, the half-frozen bear hide beside him, and he told himself not to let his mind play upon the events of the day before. But even as he swore he would not recall any of it, it was all there in his mind. Kill me and I’ll change your life.

  The bear had seemed to speak from within Gauk’s own soul. The young hunter could barely let himself recall the dazzling ease with which Whale-Biter had plunged all the way to the bear’s heart. Or to consider yet again the numbing effort that followed, skinning the great carcass.

  Snorri would have known how to stake the limbs and wield the cutting knife edge much better than Gauk, but his friend was reduced to a thing Gauk could not bring himself to look at, a poor rune of blood and rags. New fissures had opened as the sun set, the ice thawing with a sound like ugly music, and Snorri’s body had slipped away, lost in a chasm.

  Now the floe was ruddy with dawn, and the huge fissures wended in all directions. The fact of his solitude hit Gauk, and his great thirst. Women were allowed to weep, but men were expected to set their jaws and remain dry-eyed. Alone as he was, Gauk could not prevent sorrow from overcoming him again, and he wept. The memory of Snorri’s laugh was agony.

  A tern swept overhead, a white-feathered bird with a pronged tail and a black head. A flock of terns could indicate a school of fish, but a single bird, a recent arrival with the coming spring, could be an omen. Terns rarely touched earth or water, avoiding ice, plucking fish from the surface of the sea.

  Gauk realized how hungry he was, and remembered climbing the cliffs of Spjotfjord with Snorri for the eggs of nesting birds. The yolks of the fresh fertile eggs had been so full of flavor!

  Berserker.

  Gauk could not quiet his sickening uneasiness. But at the same time, he wondered—wasn’t there a certain thrill in thinking that the god would give him the power to kill men, whenever danger threatened? Wasn’t there a basic fairness that Odin repay a bereavement with a great and terrifying gift? It was something the Spjothof elders had always said about the canny god—the divinity took something valuable before he would give any new gift. Gauk had paid in the rare silver of a good friend’s life. Now he believed he would reap a just return as an Odin initiate, one of those who tie on a bear pelt and lose themselves in a fighting frenzy.

  Usually when Gauk smelled sea or ice he could tell what animals had been feeding here, but today the wind was still. He thought of his father, dying far from his family, lost in the iron-dark sea. What prayer had Ara offered, so far from his friends and his family? The gods lived in a world of splendor, with the finest food and drink in beautiful ale halls, and it was difficult for a human to distract them from their pleasure with a few human syllables of devotion.

  The small boat had been moored to a boat stake, and if the ice had not fragmented and drifted too badly, the vessel might not be far away. Errik, the village skald—poem-crafter—sometimes recited a verse about a charmed skip that could come when called. In a world of tools with names, and spears that a hunter could address like an old friend, such a story did not seem so impossible.

  Gauk whispered the boat’s name, Stigandi—Strider.

  As a child his mother had given him walrus blubber to chew on, and even that simple food would have been welcome now. He gave Whale-Biter’s iron spearpoint a wipe, breathing on it until the black gleamed. Some of the best metal fell, according to legend, right out of the sky. Surely Whale-Biter’s point had come from among the stars!

  Gauk rolled up the great pelt with difficulty, the fur thawing now in the sun. He began his trudge across the ice, dragging the fur behind him, mindful that with any step he could crash through the translucent crust and plunge into a void. His thoughts were all of beans served with mutton or boiled pork, and boiled cabbage. Even his mother’s simple bread, ground peas patted flat and baked, would be delicious sustenance now.

  The tern had returned, its shadow flowing over the glittering contours of the ice. The birds were not known as scavengers, but the searching glance of the winged creature took Gauk in, examining him as a source of food—or for some other reason. Odin was known to tease the folk he favored, placing rewards just out of reach, offering ironic discouragement, only to provide feast and firelight at the end of the long voyage.

  The bird circled, out of place here, a single, wandering creature during the breeding season. Gauk was aware that such a creature might be yet another divine apparition, advising, teasing.

  When he thought he saw the vessel at last, the blond wood dark against the floe, he fell to his knees. He blinked, rubbing his eyes, knowing that Odin deceived even as he rewarded, fed illusions, built up human hopes, only to dash them in rough
chastisement.

  He stood again, shivering, and shaded his vision with his mittened hand.

  Thirteen

  Gauk kept Strider on a steady course.

  Navigation was easy as long as the low coast was within view, and the outlying islands. At times, as night fell, ice hove into view, recently calved blocks the size of warships. In the dark the crowds of icebergs took on a glowing solemnity.

  It was dangerous sailing, and Snorri had always been better than Gauk at steering past trouble. Gauk tried not to think of how he would deliver the terrible tidings to Snorri’s family. Gauk knew there was a bitter burden involved in telling bad news. There was a famous story of a grief-stricken family turning the messenger into an otter with a curse. The otter was later slain by a hunter, and the unwitting hunter was brought before the Althing—the summer meeting where disputes were settled—as a murderer.

  When Gauk was thirsty he drank from one of the swollen goatskins of water Snorri had been careful to store in the sea chest days before. When he was hungry he chewed on some of the blood sausage Snorri’s sister-in-law had made months ago, after pig-slaughtering day in the village.

  The sausage was salty and chewy, but it was nourishing. Dark rose from the east, and a light rain fell. The weather cleared, and when Gauk looked back the polestar was steady, right where he knew it would be. The young man would have been grateful even for the companionship of Gorm, the most ill-humored of all the villagers. Even such a spiteful, unpleasant Spjotman would have been welcome on this silent voyage.

  Morning and noon Gauk sailed.

  When he slept, he reefed the sail and kept his hand on the steering oar, the way he had known Njord, the best village helmsman, to do during the long sealing expeditions Gauk had taken as a boy.