Toke pointed to the shore. “See the small-boat on the beach? I recognize it. It is the small-boat from the Red Eagle. It must be how Harald traveled here. Perhaps he arrived but yesterday evening and planned to visit you this day, but fate did not allow it.”
Hrodgar shook his head sadly. “This is truly dark news. With Harald died the last of his line, and they were all great men indeed. I offer no offense to you, Toke,” Hrodgar added, “For you appear well on the way to becoming a great man yourself. But the blood of Hrorik’s line does not flow in your veins.”
Toke nodded his head slightly. “I take no offense, and I thank you for your words that give me honor. It is indeed a dark doom that the line of Hrorik, son of Offa, son of Gorm, has ended here this day with Harald’s death.”
Lies flowed so easily from Toke’s lips. I wanted to cry out that Hrorik’s line was not ended—that I lived and was a son of Hrorik. I could not. To do so now would mean instant death at the hands of Toke’s men, and I doubted not that Toke would find some new lie to explain away my claim and my killing. But someday I would say the words. Someday I would say them to Toke—and I would kill him.
Hrodgar turned in the saddle toward his men and raised his voice. “We will raise a mound over the ashes of this longhouse, to honor Harald Hroriksson and those who fell here with him. Tomorrow, in the afternoon after the task is done, we’ll hold the funeral feast on this site.”
He turned back to Toke. “With your permission, at the funeral I will offer your captive in blood-sacrifice to the Gods and to the dead.”
Toke nodded his head again. “There is one other matter,” he said. “One of the bandits escaped. We saw him flee into the forest. We’ve caught three of the horses from the farm, and I intend to send three of my men, good archers all, to hunt him down. Your men know these parts. I would be indebted for any assistance you can give.”
Hrodgar turned to the man who had scouted the ground around the longhouse. He appeared to be about forty winters of age, and had a long, thin face with a pointed nose and piercing eyes. His beard, which was a medium brown color, was trimmed close to his face, and his hair, a few shades lighter, was pulled back and tied at his neck with a leather thong.
“This is Einar,” Hrodgar said. “He is the best tracker in our village. He can read a trail on the ground more clearly than most men read the runes. I’ll also send Kar,” he added, indicating another rider among his followers. “He is the most skilled archer among us. Einar, you will take my two hounds. What your eyes miss, their noses will find.”
“This man is very dangerous,” Toke said. “He’s very skilled with a bow. Two of my three dead, and several of my wounded, fell to his arrows.”
“We hunt him with dogs and five men armed with bows,” Hrodgar responded. “For one man it should be enough.” He raised his voice and addressed his men. “We return now to the village. We must make known the death of Harald Hroriksson, and tell the womenfolk to begin preparations for the funeral feast.”
The villagers turned and began to ride away. Hrodgar, too, wheeled his horse, but before he spurred it, he spoke again to Toke.
“I will return later this morning with men to begin work on the grave-mound. Your crew can help us. Many hands will make the work go quickly. Einar and Kar will come with the hounds. Tell your men to be ready. The sooner the hunt is begun, the closer shall be their prey.” He kicked his horse and rode after his men, the last of whom were already crossing the stream.
When he was confident that Hrodgar was out of earshot, Toke turned to one of the men standing near him. “After the funeral feast is over, we’ll sail south to the estate. If you’ve not caught the boy and killed him before then, ride south and rejoin us there when you’ve finished your task.”
With the villagers’ departure, I’d abandoned all thoughts of trying to kill Toke now. Even if I succeeded, moments later I’d be hacked to death by his men. Toke had not done this deed alone. Every member of his crew had participated. I wanted them all to pay. Only by keeping myself alive could I fully avenge Harald and those who’d died with him. It would require a long hunt, but I vowed that in the end I would kill them all.
The problem that faced me was surviving the next few days. Five men armed with bows, and aided by dogs, would be hunting me. They were on horseback. I was afoot. They would be carrying provisions. I had none, and would have to find what sustenance I could in the forest while on the move. Those were the odds against me. In my favor were only my skills as a woodsman and with my bow. I felt fear, great fear. I wondered if the deer or the boar, when pursued through the forest by hunters and hounds, felt the kind of fear that I felt now.
I told myself that I was not a beast and must not act like one. Blind flight, driven by fear, would kill me. I must conquer my fear or I would not survive. I must depend on the few resources I had, and make them suffice. That, and hope that Odin had heard my prayer and oath, and would not turn his back on my quest to avenge Harald and the others.
The sun was well past its midday height when I first heard, in the far distance, the baying of hounds on my trail. I’d been wondering, as I trotted along narrow game trails through the shadows under the trees, how Toke’s men would give the hounds my scent. It would not agree with the tale Toke had spun to show the villagers where I’d actually entered the forest. He’d told Hrodgar that the fighting out in the fields had occurred before he and his men had arrived, and that he and his men had fought the bandits down between the work sheds and the shore.
Perhaps Toke’s men had found the empty scabbard I’d cast aside, or my helm. I’d discarded both last night when I’d first reached the shelter of the trees at the end of the stone wall. The scabbard I had no need for, without the sword, and I’d feared the helm would reflect a glint of light and betray my position when I sneaked back close to the burning longhouse. Those things would bear my scent, and would be enough to allow the hounds to start casting back and forth in the woods behind the longhouse in search of my trail. I wondered whether the hounds or the eagle-eyed tracker, Einar, would discover where I’d lain in hiding, listening to Toke’s lies to Hrodgar. I wondered whether Toke, realizing how close I’d been, would feel any fear. Did a man like Toke feel fear? I wanted him to. I wanted him to know that death stalked him. I wanted him to feel unease every time he passed close to a patch of forest, wondering if I lurked in the shadows waiting for a shot.
Using the sun as my guide, I headed south and west. I knew from our voyage up the coast that several rivers drained into the sea from the lands south of the Limfjord. I needed to stay inland, well away from the coast, so any waterways I encountered would hopefully be early in their course, and as narrow as possible, at the point I needed to cross them. I could not afford to be trapped by my pursuers against the banks of a river too broad to cross.
As I made my way through the forest, whenever I came upon a stream, however small, I made my path for a considerable distance through its waters, even if to do so took me temporarily off course. Every time the hounds lost my scent I would gain time and distance on my pursuers, while they searched to find my trail again.
Darkness fell with my pursuers still far behind me, judging by the occasional barks or baying of the hounds. I hadn’t eaten since the feast. To my empty stomach, it seemed much longer than just one night ago. I felt grateful now that I’d stuffed myself so on the fine dishes Aidan and Tove had prepared, and I regretted the scraps I’d left on my platter because I’d felt too gorged to eat them.
I didn’t think the searchers would continue their hunt in the dark. Under the canopy of the trees, the blackness was intense, almost palpable. They’d need torches to make any speed at all, but torches would light them up as targets if I was lying in ambush.
The darkness hindered my progress, too, though. After the third time I tripped over an unseen root and fell sprawling, I gave up. I needed rest anyway. I had fought a battle the night before—the first I’d ever been in—then had been pushing hard all day in
my flight from my pursuers, alternately trotting and walking, a pace that ate up the miles but conserved wind and strength. I was exhausted now. My labors had drained the strength from my body, and my grief at Harald’s death had sapped my spirit. If I did not rest, I risked becoming too weary to think clearly. And I could not afford to make mistakes.
That night I slept wrapped in my cloak, burrowed for warmth and concealment in a drift of leaves that had blown against the trunk of a fallen forest giant. The ground was cold and hard. Every time a breath of breeze blew, the leaves that covered me rustled and I started awake, fearing that my pursuers were upon me.
I was awakened in the middle of the night by a snuffling noise nearby. Cautiously, and as quietly as I could, I pulled back the edge of my cloak and cleared the leaves from in front of my face.
A deep, throaty growl answered my movement. In front of me—not six paces away—was a great gray wolf. He’d been investigating my scent trail leading into the leaves. Beyond him, ringed in a half circle facing my hiding place, was his pack.
I remembered Harald had told me, when showing me the graves of our ancestors, that wolves had killed the first of Hrorik’s line to settle along the Limfjord. I wondered if wolves would end our line now, here in this dark forest. It seemed the sort of perverse twist of fate the Norns might like to spin.
I’d unstrung my bow when I’d lain down to sleep, so its limbs might rest also. If the pack decided to attack now, I had only my dagger to defend myself with.
Their leader hadn’t moved. He continued to stand before me, head lowered, fur along his spine raised and bristling, growling and watching warily. My body was still hidden under my cloak and the drift of leaves I’d burrowed into, but my scent told him that a hated man was hiding in front of him.
The wolf’s fur was sleek and he looked well fed. The winter had been mild and the deer abundant. I knew wolves did not normally feed on men, except in times of famine. On the other hand, men did not normally sleep alone in the forest without a fire.
I reared up suddenly on my knees, scattering the leaves in a great flurry, and shouted at the wolf in a wordless growl. As I did, I swung my bow out and jabbed in his direction with the sharpened horn tip. He was out of reach. In truth, I wanted only to startle him, not strike him, for the latter might provoke an attack.
The big wolf was quick—he leapt back several paces then stayed crouched there, growling louder. I growled back at him in a voice I hoped sounded menacing. As we faced each other, both watching for some sign of weakness or imminent attack, I pulled my bow slowly in front of me, braced it against my knee, and strung it.
I slid an arrow from my quiver, nocked it on the string, and felt my confidence begin to return. Though still outnumbered, I was a man again. I had the power to kill from afar. I stood up slowly, so I was looking down at the wolf, a man facing a beast. When I did, he backed up another step, and growled louder. I stopped my wordless growl and spoke to the wolf leader.
“You are a chieftain among your kind,” I told him. “You possess the wisdom needed to lead them. Lead them now away from danger.” I held the bow out before me. “You know of men. You know this is the power of death, that strikes quick and sure from afar. If you and your followers attack, I may die, but I will kill you first. I promise it. Look in my eyes and know that I speak true. You and I have no quarrel. Take your pack and go.”
The wolf leader stayed crouched before me, growling, his long teeth bared. I wondered if wolves could understand the speech of men. Behind him, a female was pacing back and forth anxiously in front of the rest of the pack, who were now sitting motionless on their haunches, watching. I wished he would make up his mind. I needed to concentrate, to keep my thoughts focused to shoot quickly enough to kill him if he leapt. But random thoughts and distractions kept sneaking into my mind. I needed to make water. And my hunger was asserting itself. I was beginning to wonder how wolf would taste.
Suddenly he turned and disappeared silently into the darkness with his pack.
When they left, the trembling began. I sat back down and leaned against the log, trying to collect my thoughts and my courage. Perhaps, I told myself, this was an omen, a sign from Odin. Perhaps I should take heart from it. Was Odin not called the wolf-feeder? As the God of war, did he not litter fields of battle with feasts for wolves, and foxes, and ravens? Perhaps he’d sent the wolves to me tonight, to signal that he’d heard my oath and would support me in it. I found some comfort in these thoughts, even though I did not fully believe them.
I knew I’d sleep no more that night. Gathering my few possessions, I continued on through the forest. My hunger was becoming a problem that required attention.
Shortly before dawn, I reached a river, and with an arrow at ready on my bow, I ranged along its banks searching for game.
In the last of the gray hours before morn, I came to a bend in the river. Sometime in the past, a great oak, its roots undercut by the river’s flow, had fallen across the river from the other side. Beginning in the middle of the river and reaching over close to the bank on which I stood, an island had formed along the upstream side of the trunk, from silt trapped by the great tree’s branches. The tree’s fall had happened sufficiently long ago that grasses, low shrubs, and even a few small saplings grew on the island.
As I watched from behind a thicket on the river’s bank, two ducks, which had spent the night huddled together in the tall grasses on the shore of the little island, stretched their wings and waddled over to the water’s edge. One fell to my bow while the other escaped, flying low over the water, squawking in alarm.
The top of the great tree rested on the bank near where I stood. Like ribs on an old skeleton that the flesh has long ago vanished from, the remains of its branches jutted out randomly from the trunk. Only the thickest part of the branches remained attached; the outer ends of the branches—all of the smaller forks, twigs, and dead foliage—had long ago rotted away.
Using the trunk as a bridge, I crossed to the island and broke my fast. I skinned the duck’s breast, and over a tiny fire, burning just two or three twigs at a time so as to make no column of smoke, I seared the meat in the flames until it was cooked through. The duck’s legs I saved for a later meal.
After I’d eaten, I explored the little island and its surrounds. As I did, a plan began to form itself in my mind.
On the side of the river I’d come from, where the top of the great oak had landed, the tree’s branches and some boulders along the shore they’d fallen on had combined to raise the trunk far enough above the river’s surface so the water’s flow was not blocked. Although the center of the river was dammed by the trunk and the silt that had been trapped by its branches, a deep and swift-flowing channel coursed between the island and the bank on that side of the river.
On the far side of the river, a giant tangle of roots and earth had fallen with the tree into the water. For a long time, the river must have been almost totally blocked on that side, for from the edge of the island out to the end of the tree’s roots, the bottom had filled with silt, leaving the water at times just ankle deep, and never higher than my knees. I waded out and looked beyond the roots. Eventually the swirling waters had cut a narrow channel around the end of the tangled mass of roots, and the river flowed there past them steadily now again, though not so deep, wide, nor swiftly as the channel under the head of the tree on the other side of the island.
The span from the last solid footing among the roots to the bank on this side was no more than five feet. The tree provided a natural bridge across the river for a man on foot, though it would be of no use to a man on horseback. As I looked up, I saw something else. Whether from rain or river’s flood, over time the earth packed about the roots deep up underneath the base of the trunk had been eroded away. I realized that what at first appeared to be just shadow from the mass of roots and earth above was actually an opening. I crawled up and found a hollow large enough for a man to lay curled in, invisible to any, save one who found the
entrance directly below.
In an instant I could see the entire plan in my mind. I had been given an opportunity by the forest or Odin—or both. If I was clever and acted boldly, I might be able to reduce the odds against me. For a brief time, I might become the hunter, instead of the prey. But I knew I must move quickly if I was to set my trap, for I had much trail to lay.
I dropped down from the hollow under the roots, and waded through the shallow water back to the island. For my plan to work, it was essential that no scent trail lead to my hiding place.
Climbing up on the fallen trunk, I returned to the bank from whence I’d first come. I ran as fast as my legs and lungs could take me, back to the point where I’d first come upon the river. From there I continued on downstream. When the hounds and trackers following my trail found where I’d reached the river, they would discover that my path led in both directions along the river’s edge. I hoped the two trails would make them think I’d had to search in both directions, looking for a place to cross. I needed to split the hunting party, to make them divide and follow both trails. I knew I could not take them all on at once.
The spirit of the river must have been aiding me. Not far downstream, I came upon a shallows where the river was flowing slower, never more than waist-deep, and could be forded. I left clear footprints on the bank for those behind to read, took off my clothing, and, holding it and my weapons overhead, waded across the river.
Once ashore, I dressed and began running through the woods, a short distance in from and parallel to the river, heading back upstream. Watching through the gaps between the trees as I ran, I reached a point where I could see where the great tree had fallen across the river. There I turned and laid a trail away from the river, heading deeper into the forest. I was running short of time now, for I could hear the dogs barking and howling in the distance. I did not journey far into the woods, perhaps two or three bowshots, when I found a trickle of running water. Judging that I could risk no more time on my false trail, I ended it at the tiny stream’s edge. Being careful to walk backward wherever the soil was soft, and keeping my steps in my earlier footprints, I backtracked, retracing the path I’d just made.
Viking Warrior Page 19
