“Treasure!” cheered Hrothi.
There were coins of many shapes and sizes, and links broken from chains of silver, and brooches, and rings, and bronze, and copper, and gold.
All three of them stared.
“It belongs to Hrudiger?” Brynja asked. “He wasn’t just telling stories?”
“It belongs to me, now,” someone said from behind them. “What good is treasure to a useless old man?”
They turned and saw Arnuld Arnulfsson, glowering, the hood of his cloak pushed back and his flaxen hair gilded by the firelight.
“Arnuld!” gasped Brynja. “You followed us?”
“I did. I wanted to see what you would rather be doing than discuss our wedding plans, and so I find you here, keeping company with your whelp of a brother and this slavewoman whore.”
“I am here,” she said, rising, “to build this beacon for my father!”
“Your father is dead, or might as well be, and good riddance! Now, come away from there and bring that with you,” he said, jerking his head at the hoard. “It’ll make a fine bride-price.”
“With this bride-price,” Unn said, “Orfric Sjolfrsson will marry her, not you.”
Arnuld gaped as if unable to believe his ears, both what he was hearing and from whom he was hearing it. Two fast strides and he swung his arm, backhanding her, his knuckles cracking hard across her cheek and jaw. Unn sprawled sideways, dazed from the force of the blow. His boot slammed into her ribs, driving the air from her lungs in a coughing gust. She curled there on the bare stone, unable to move.
“Unn!” Brynja started toward her but Arnuld seized her arm, and she cried out in pain.
“Let go of my sister!” Hrothi hurled himself at the youth, fists flailing wildly. His feet scattered through Hrudiger’s hoard, sending coins and trinkets bouncing.
But Arnuld was more than twice his size, and enraged. He shoved Brynja down, caught Hrothi by the throat and crotch, and hefted boy overhead.
“Haven’t I tried to kill you often enough, you little piece of goat’s shit?” Arnuld shouted, as Hrothi thrashed and struggled. “How much does it take?”
“You…” Brynja looked at him, aghast, and Unn knew the girl was thinking the same as she was. The ice, the falls, the near-accidents, the many dangers Hrothi had luckily escaped…
“Once he’s gone and you’re mine,” Arnuld told her, “then so is Skuthorpe! If I must get rid of this slave whore and the old man as well, so be it!”
And he threw Hrothi from the headland. The boy’s horrified, trailing scream mingled with that of his sister.
Arnuld went to Brynja, yanking her up. She clawed at him and he struck her until she crumpled, weeping. Then he scooped up into the sack again as much of the spilled hoard as he could reach. He spared one last kick at Unn, catching her in the shoulder so that a hot thunderclap of agony overtook her, and then he was gone, dragging Brynja and the sack of treasure with him, and the thunderclap became a thick greyness descending over Unn like death’s shadow.
How long she’d lain there until consciousness returned, Unn could only guess. Long enough that the clouds had moved in from the east and began spitting rain, which hissed in the dwindling fire. She pushed herself up, ribs and shoulder throbbing, the side of her face feeling swollen and sore.
She heard a sound of whimpering, and at first thought it came from her own hurt body. When she held her breath, though, and listened, she realized it came from elsewhere. She looked down, and saw Hrothi, wedged against an outcrop and clinging to a twisted tree limb. Hrothi, scraped and bruised, frightened and crying, but alive.
“Hrothi!”
Somehow, despite her injuries, she clambered down to him. As she did, distant lightning shot jagged across the sky and for an instant in its flash she thought she glimpsed the shape of a ship bobbing at the shore below. But in the next flash, she could not see it, and then Hrothi’s arms were around her and he sobbed like a child against her neck.
Unn crawled back up with the boy, a slow and difficult ascent, and many times she was sure she would not be able to keep her grip and they would both fall. At last, she reached the top, where the fire yet burned… but there were strange shapes around it, hunched and bent shapes, picking up the scattered coins… and she thought they must be trolls come from the forest to reclaim the treasure… which had not been Hrudiger’s after all but did belong to the trolls.
Then she saw that they were men, men in leather coats and men armed with swords, men turning to her, shocked by the sight they must have presented, woman and boy, muddied and bloodied.
One of them stepped forward and pulled off his helm, which was bright steel chased with bronze, and bronze about the eyepieces, and with the bronze figure of a hawk set atop it. His hair fell around his shoulders, and in the firelight it was red as a battle flag.
“Father!” Hrothi cried.
Hrothgar Firehair had come home.
He held out his arms for his son, and Unn gave Hrothi over.
“Where is Brynja? What has happened here?”
She told him everything, as his men gathered around.
And there was that night in Skuthorpe a fearful slaughter.
Lady Gethril died first, even as she mocked at Hrothgar that he dare not kill her. She was kin to his children and there would be a blood-feud, she said, but he coldly replied she had given up all claims of kinship when her son had laid hands upon Hrothi and Brynja, and a quick slash of his sword opened her neck to the bone, before she could voice her final scream.
Arnuld, they caught alive as he was bringing Brynja and the sack of stolen treasure back to the hall. Because she said he had not yet tried to rape her, they hamstrung him, and bound him to a post outside the longhouse while they went about the rest of their gruesome work. He wailed like a woman, and begged, and pissed himself in his terror, as Hrothi’s dogs circled and bit at his ruined legs.
When Hrothgar stood face-to-face with Sjolfr Hyggsson, demanding to know why his former friend and war-companion had betrayed him and served as steward to Gethril, Unn threw herself between them and implored that Sjolfr’s life and family be spared.
“He was kind to us,” she said. “Your grandfather, your children, and me. I think he was no friend of hers.”
“Is this true, Sjolfr?”
“It is, lord, and I would still be your sworn man.”
“Upon your oath?”
“Yes, lord. Upon my oath.”
The two lowered their swords then, and embraced like brothers, and Sjolfr joined the men of the Hawk’s Wing in finding all those who had given willing support to Lady Gethril.
Some fled, and were pursued, and pierced by thrown spears, and died in the new-plowed fields where they fell, richening the soil with their blood. Some fought back, knowing their lives were forfeit even should they surrender, but they were for the most part farmers and herdsmen against hardened warriors, and they, too, died where they fell. Others—Arnulf, Gethril’s husband, among them—gave only token resistance and accepted their grim fate.
In the following dawn, the blameless thralls began hauling the corpses away to make a charnel pit. Unn, bruised and aching but assured by one of the elder wise-women that none of her bones were broken, found herself summoned from a deep and weary sleep to the longhouse.
She washed, and went, passing Arnuld on the way where he still hung limp and bound to the post. He had bled to death in the long night, else someone had taken pity on him and ended his misery. She did not know, did not ask, and did not much care.
Hrothgar Firehair waited for her, standing with his family, before his hall with the boar’s skull mounted above the door. His men were there also, and Sjolfr, and Sjolfr’s wife and sons, and many of the people of Skuthorpe as well.
“Unn, slavewoman,” Hrothgar said.
Unn, awkward in her stiffness and aches, knelt upon the matted grass with her head bowed. “Yes, lord.”
“You have well cared for my grandfather, befriended my daught
er, and saved my son. Let all here bear witness that you are a free woman, a slave no more.” His voice rang with it, a strong proclamation.
She glanced up, mouth agape, eyes wide. She saw Hrudiger’s broad, pleased smile and heard Brynja’s squeal of joy.
“I will reward you with wealth enough to keep you all your days,” he continued, “and send men to escort you home or wherever else you wish.”
“Thank you, lord,” Unn said, overwhelmed.
“Or…” He looked at her then, this tall and proud war-chieftain, stern and handsome, solemn and grim, his tone much softer. “Or, Unn, you could stay.”
So saying, he extended a hand to her, and Unn reached to take it.
About the Author
Christine Morgan grew up in the hot, sunny desert, and moved north to get away from it as soon as she could. Her degree in psychology has served her well, particularly in helping her to land a night-shift residential counseling gig, which allows her some writing time in the wee small hours. Twice married and twice divorced, she now lives with a roomie and a bunch of cats, and has a grown daughter of whom she’s eternally proud. Her lifelong loves of language, history, mythology, and horror all intersect best in the Viking age. An avid reader and reviewer and crazy craft/cookie lady as well, she’s currently delighting in adding her own little touch of weirdness to the Portland writing community.
Table of Contents
Contents
The Raven’s Table
Other books by Christine Morgan
Frontmatter
Dedication
Epigraph
The Barrow-Maid
Thyf's Tale
The Fate-Spinners
The Vulgarity Of Giants
In the Forests of the Far Land
Njord's Daughter
A Feast of Meat and Mead
Nails of the Dead
Sven Bloodhair
The Mottled Bear
To Fetter the Fenris-Wolf
At Ragnarok, the Goddesses
With Honey Dripping
Aerkheim’s Horror
The Shield-Wall
The Seven Ravens
As We Drown and Die
Brynja’s Beacon
About the Author
The Raven's Table: Viking Stories Page 28
