Viking Dead

by Toby Venables

  TOMES OF THE DEAD

  VIKING DEAD

  Toby Venables

  An Abaddon BooksTM Publication

  www.abaddonbooks.com

  abaddon@rebellion.co.uk

  First published in 2011 by Abaddon BooksTM, Rebellion Publishing Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.

  Editor-in-Chief: Jonathan Oliver

  Desk Editor: David Moore

  Junior Editor: Jenni Hill

  Cover Art: Gerard Miley

  Design: Simon Parr & Luke Preece

  Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

  Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley

  Copyright © 2011 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

  Tomes of The DeadTM, Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.

  ISBN: (MOBI) 978-1-84997-266-6

  ISBN: (ePUB) 978-1-84997-265-9

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book, including in the Introduction and Appendices, are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  PROLOGUE

  Skalla sat, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword, his chin resting on his hands, staring at the pile of bodies.

  The still-warm corpses steamed in the cool air of the clearing. Behind him, his black-clad men, done cleaning their weapons, stood in silence, waiting - for what, they knew not. Some, perhaps, suspected. But only Skalla knew for certain.

  To his right, he heard feet shifting nervously among the damp leaves. That would be Gamli. Like the others, he was impatient to get out of this place. But there was more to his restlessness than that. Skalla had had his eye on Gamli for some time, aware that he had started to lose faith in their masters. More than once he had questioned their orders. It took a brave man to do that, or a stupid one. Skalla knew Gamli was no fool - but he also knew the man's boldness hid deeper fears. Fears that could spread, infecting the others, contaminating them with doubt. That, he could not allow. It threatened everything they had built here.

  He ran his fingers through the black bristles on his chin, then up to the scar that passed through his left eye. It ran from his forehead down across his cheek, and had left the eye sightless - milk-white and dead. He pushed at the edge of his helm, relieving the pressure on his forehead for a moment. The scar tissue itched badly today. It always did after combat - the result of the heat and sweat. Not that what had just passed could truthfully be termed 'combat.'

  There had been six in all. Perhaps seven. He couldn't remember. They were the ones who had been locked up the longest, those meant to be forgotten. The ones who ran, who broke down, who refused to work, who fought back. The biggest heroes and and the biggest cowards. All the same, now. They had also been kept separate all this time - well away from the various wonders and horrors that had been unfolding. That, Skalla suspected, was one of the real reasons for this little outing to the woods. True, his masters had no desire to waste further food on these lost causes. But they were also wise enough not to waste an opportunity. They would make some use of them, even in death.

  And so, they had marched them to this lonely spot, shackled and at spear point, and forced them to cut logs for firewood. They had performed the tasks well, considering their chequered histories - some, almost with gratitude. Perhaps, thought Skalla, it simply felt good to have a purpose again. He had not told them they were gathering wood for their own funeral pyre.

  The killing had been quick. Regrettably, the kills were not as clean as he'd hoped. There were struggles, cries, prolonged agonies, repeated blows. From the start, it had not been the most straightforward task. His men had been reluctant to venture into these woods, even during daylight. Then there had been the orders themselves. No damage to the head or neck - that's what their masters had specified. The order had bemused Skalla's men, and in the heat of the slaughter - one could hardly dignify the killing of these unarmed, underfed wretches with the term 'battle' - he could not be sure how closely they had adhered to it. At least one had taken a glancing sword blow across the top of the head - protruding from the heap, Skalla could see his hairy, blood-matted scalp, flapped open like the lid of a chest, the yellow-white bone of the skull grinning through the gore. But it didn't matter now. It was done. They would see soon.

  "We're done here," said a voice behind Skalla. It was Gamli. He had stepped closer to where Skalla was sitting. Clearly, he was itching to leave. Perhaps he understood more than Skalla had realised.

  "We wait," said Skalla.

  "For what?"

  "Until we are sure."

  "Sure?" Gamli's voice was edgy. As always, he tried to cover it with a kind of swagger. "What is there to be sure of?"

  "That they're dead."

  Gamli laughed emptily, his throat tight. "Then why not burn them now and have done with it?"

  "Are you questioning me, Gamli?" Skalla's eyes remained fixed on the corpses.

  A kind of panic entered Gamli's eyes. "Not you. I would never... but the masters. There are doubts about them." He looked around as he said this, as if expecting support from his fellows. None came.

  Skalla did not move. "I pledged my sword to them," he said, "and you swore an oath of allegiance to me. You do not question one without also questioning the other."

  Gamli stood motionless, robbed of speech.

  "Step back into line," said Skalla.

  Before he could do so, a sound came from the heap, and an arm flopped out of the tangle. The men's hands jumped to their weapons. The arm hung there, motionless - quite dead. Olvir - one of the three crossbowmen - broke the silence with a nervous laugh. "For a moment, I thought..." He was interrupted by a low groan from the centre of the heap. Skalla stood slowly, hand still upon his sword, and, stretching to his full height, slowly flexed his shoulders. It was part of his ritual before combat.

  "Gas. From the bodies," said another of the men, nervously. "They can do that." Olvir began to cock and load his crossbow. The others followed suit.

  From deep within the pile came a weird, semi-human grunt, and the whole tangle suddenly shifted. As one, the men drew swords and raised crossbows. The uppermost body - a skinny man, whose abdomen was split open, and whose right arm had been all but severed - slithered from the top of the heap. The hand that had loosed itself from the pile twitched, its fingers inexplicably starting to straighten.

  "It's beginning..." said Skalla. The hollow moan repeated itself, and was joined by two more in a kind of desolate, mindless chorus. As they watched in horror, dead limbs moved, arms flailed and grasped, lifeless eyes flicked open.

  "This can't be happening," said Gamli. "Not to them..." From the heap, one of the men - a solid, muscular fellow who had taken two crossbow bolts through the chest, one of which had pinned his right hand to his sternum - staggered unsteadily to his feet. For a moment, he seemed to sniff the air, then turned and lurched towards them.

  Skalla spat on his palms and raised his sword. "Aim for the heads," he said, and swung the blade with all his strength at the dead man's neck. Such was the force of the cut that it sliced clean through, knocking the attacker off his feet and sending his head bowling into the bushes. Already two more were on their feet - the skinny man, his right arm hanging by a sinew, his glistening guts dangling between his legs, and the scalped man, his cap of hair flappin
g absurdly to one side like piece of bearskin, who Skalla could now see had been killed by a heavy sword blow to the left side of his chest, the upper and lower parts sliding against each other gruesomely with each lurching step. A crossbow bolt hit the skinny man in the shoulder, spinning him round. "In the head!" barked Skalla. As the skinny man resumed his steady progress a second bolt thudded into his eye, knocking him flat. A third flew uselessly past the scalped man's ear. His arms reached out, grasping at Skalla, as another three grotesque figures rose stiffly behind him.

  The rest of Skalla's men, momentarily mesmerised by the scene unfolding before them, now threw themselves into the fight. Gamli stepped forward first, grasping the scalped man's outstretched arm and hurling him to the floor. Drawing a long cavalry axe from a strap at his back, he flipped it around and with one blow drove its long, steel spike through the exposed skull. As his other men hacked mercilessly at two of the remaining ghouls, Skalla advanced to finish off the third - a once-fat man with folds of saggy skin beneath his ragged, filthy tunic. Skalla recognised the stab wounds in his chest - wounds that he himself had delivered with his knife. The fat man's left arm - bloody and slashed where he had attempted to defend himself from Skalla's blade - waved before him, his right -- bloodier still - hanging crippled and useless by his side. Skalla raised his sword steadily, waiting for the right moment. The man's hand, formed into a claw, swayed and snatched at Skalla, his jaws opening and closing like those of an idiot child, dribbling bloody drool down his chest. Skalla began to swing - but something caught his foot, pulling him off balance. He stumbled and fell heavily onto the damp earth.

  Looking at his feet, he saw that the seventh prisoner - his spinal cord severed, his legs useless - had dragged himself along the forest floor, and now, teeth bared, Skalla's ankle gripped in both hands, was gnawing at his leather boot, his blue-tinged jaws opening and closing mechanically like a landed fish gasping for air. Skalla recoiled in disgust, kicking at the ghoul's slavering, gap-toothed mouth - but the tenacious grip held, and over him now loomed the fat man, moaning and clawing at his face. Too close for an effective blow, Skalla abandoned his sword and scrabbled for his knife - but, before he had time to draw it, another sword blade was driven hard into the fat man's mouth, sending him choking and tottering backwards, his teeth grinding horribly against its metal edge. Skalla recognised the hilt: Gamli's sword. Skalla swiftly regained his feet, took up his own weapon once more and brought it down with a crashing blow, cleaving the skull of the crawling man in two. He gave a nod of acknowledgement to Gamli, and scraped the man's brains off his black boot with the point of his blade.

  It was over. And his men, thankfully, had escaped unscathed.

  "So it's finally happened," said Gamli, surveying the carnage that surrounded them - the men they had hacked down for the second time that day. "Our worst fear has come to life." The others exchanged anxious glances.

  Skalla ignored him, wiping clean and sheathing his sword as he hunted around for the head of the first corpse-walker. He would take that back to his masters.

  "I'm sorry," said Gamli, bowing his head. Skalla turned to face him. "I will not question you again."

  "No," said Skalla. "You will not." And without blinking he stabbed Gamli in the side of the throat with his knife, severing both carotid arteries, then pulled the blade forward through his windpipe. Gamli collapsed in an eruption of blood, his last cry turned to a choked gurgle of air bubbling and frothing from his neck.

  As he pumped crimson onto the forest floor, a contorted expression of disbelief frozen upon his face, Skalla looked upon him for the last time. "I did not kill you before only because I needed your sword," he said matter-of-factly, and stepped over the body. The other men drew back as he approached. He scanned their faces one at a time, then sheathed his knife.

  "Burn them," said Skalla, the still-living Gamli convulsing behind him. "All of them."

  PART ONE

  VIKINGR

  CHAPTER ONE

  FOG

  Atli should have been home hours ago. Clutching the bundle of gnarled sticks tight to his chest as he emerged from the trees onto the broad curve of the riverbank, he looked south towards the distant, looming shadow of the Middagsberg. His heart sank. It was even later than he'd thought. The low sun, a watery smudge of light in the late summer mist, had long since passed the cleft in its summit, and was already half-way to the mid-afternoon daymark - the ragged edge of tall pines puncturing the horizon on the mountain's shallow western slope. For a moment he imagined his father looking up at the same line of trees, his face livid with anger, cursing his son's name.

  He would get a beating again. It was part of the routine.

  He shivered, turned his eyes resignedly to the ground, and kicked idly at the wet, grey stones that littered the bank, the smell of the damp wood in his nostrils. The threat of his father's stick across his back should, he knew, be sufficient incentive for him to head back home in good time. That was certainly the intention. But it just made him all the more determined to stay away. And the longer he put off his return, the more severe became the inevitable punishment - and the more gloomily reluctant he became. A vicious circle. "Like a dog chasing its tail," his mother used to say. It had been eight winters since she'd passed, when Atli was barely five years old, but he still recalled her words from time to time, although her face was now lost to him.

  It had been this way almost as long as he could remember. He often wandered by the water now, dreaming of change, escape - something, anything - but where that change might come from, even he could not imagine. And as he dreamed, and his father fumed - increasingly at odds with the world, as well as his own son - each grew more distant from the other, more stubborn, more deeply entrenched, until Atli had begun to fear where it might ultimately lead.

  He flicked a loose stone with his foot so it tumbled and splashed, coming to rest in the shallows at the water's edge - the edge of his world. These waters were their protection. That's what his father always told him. To Atli, however, they seemed more like a prison. To the north, through the woods and beyond the village, was the river Svanær. South of the village - and on whose banks Atli now stood - the wider, meandering Ottar. Each provided them with plentiful fish and formed a barrier against overland raiders and outlaws. To the west, on the spur of land that dwindled to a point where the two rivers met, was thick forest with good hunting - accessible only from their village. To the east, the fertile land and rich pasture upon which they'd built their farms rose to distant, rocky fells - a natural discouragement to any who did not already know the paths, and which had long proved its worth. As his father had said so often, it was the land that supported them, and the land that kept them from harm. Atli thought of all the times he had sought solace down by the water's edge, and wondered how often, had the river not been here to protect them, he would have kept on walking until that familiar landscape were left far behind.

  There was one threat the land did not keep them safe from, however; a danger that tormented his father's mind and had become the subject of repeated, dire warnings. River raiders. Pirates. Vikingr. "If you see vikingr," his father said, "you must run. Run as fast as you can. They are bad men. Desperate men. They will cut a man's throat for the fun of it - and much worse. They steal everything that isn't nailed down. Even the animals. They dishonour and kill women. They eat children. I have heard it! Remember, you must run - and warn the village. But make no sound!"

  "How will I know them?" Atli had asked.

  "You will know them." His father had nodded with a kind of portentous unease. "They will come from the river. And you will know them..."

  There hadn't ever been a raid in these parts. Not even further downriver was such a thing heard of these days - at least, not as far as Atli knew. And anyway, if he did encounter vikingr, the one thing he wouldn't do was run. He would beg to be taken with them.

  He sighed and gazed longingly across the still water - or, at least, as far as it would let him. I
n the last few hours a thick shroud of fog had rolled in from the estuary. Following the course of the river upstream with eerie precision, it hovered silently over the river's surface now, mocking its shape, obscuring the tall trees of the opposite bank as it thickened the air. Dead. Impenetrable. Ungraspable. Like a ghost, thought Atli. Like the creeping ghost of the river. Images crowded his head from old stories his father had told - of whispy spirits escaping from the bodies of the dead, of glowing smokes and fogs seeping out of mounds and barrows and taking terrible, half-recognised shapes that sucked the life out of the living. Another chill ran through him. He kicked at the stones with a sudden anger, as if to banish thought with physical action - any kind of action - to kick his childish night-terrors away. He refused to succumb to the anxieties and superstitions that had taken over his father's life. He refused to live in fear. Every day now he saw it in his father's eyes, and it made him ashamed.

  Superstition had been the other half of Atli's upbringing. When he was young, the stories had seemed magical - dwarves and elves that lived in the earth and forged great gifts of gold, spirits and serpents that lived in the woods and the water, gods who turned men's fortunes, playing cruel tricks on the proud and bestowing blessings upon the brave. Although, in his heart, he had never quite believed in their literal truth, as others seemed to, they nonetheless had their own reality - one that he loved. They existed in another world. And they were an escape from his own.

  Then, after his mother died, the tone of the stories changed. Each one became a warning. Another stick to beat him with.

  All manner of irrational fears seemed to take over his life. His father became obsessed with death. At wakes - where most were content to drink and share good memories - he cut a gloomy, troubled figure, repeatedly warning those present to take precautions against the corpse's potential return. He would insist upon an open pair of iron scissors being placed on the chest of the deceased, and always afterwards could be seen sprinkling salt along the threshold. It was protection, he said, against the draugr - the undead - who returned to inflict untold horrors upon the living. In regions to the south, there was talk they were on the rise. He'd heard it from a merchant who refused to go near the place.