The Berserkers

by Roger Elwood

  “Now,” he roared, “we will see who drowns.”

  Not quite releasing his hold on the Viking’s arm, Asleik slid down and away from the slashing cut that was aimed at him. At the same time he took a deep breath and pulled down heavily on the other’s heaving body.

  He could hear Gorm’s bellowing become an eerie gurgling and then cease entirely. Exerting a continuous downward pressure on the struggling man, he kept lowering him steadily into deeper waters. The seconds went by. Gorm stopped moving after a last twitch or two.

  Just when he could no longer hold his breath, Asleik released his grip and moved upward to the surface. A moment later Gorm’s lifeless body floated up next to him, face downward.

  The eager hands of Birgit’s brother reached out to help him up the ledge.

  Still breathing heavily, he sat on the rocky ledge and stared at Gorm’s body as it swayed gently in the water at his feet.

  The langskip, he could see, was drifting further and further away.

  “The silver in the chest,” Asleik said weakly, “it’s on the ship.”

  Dag Eyvindsson laughed grimly. “A king’s langskip is already picking them up.”

  Asleik rose shakily to his feet. “Your sister, is she safe?”

  “I am right here behind you.” The girl answered the question herself.

  Asleik strode over to the back of the ledge and picked up the warrior sword Gorm had thrown wildly at him. It was a beautiful weapon. His father must have put magic into its making, for not once had Gorm been able to strike him with it.

  He went back to the others who were now talking to the men in the king’s langskip that had come up next to the ledge. It was a sturdy ship, with twenty oars to each side.

  Still half dazed by his brush with death, Asleik only partly heard what Dag Eyvindsson and the captain of the ship were saying.

  Dag turned to him. “They say they are taking the chest of silver to Oslo for safekeeping and will be glad to drop you off at your fjord land.”

  Asleik fingered the sword in his hand and smiled wryly. “I just killed the eldest son of my great jarl. I fear to return home. Many of the men killed tonight were from my region. Their families will demand blod-wite, blood money.”

  “Birgit and I too could demand blood money for what they did to our family,” Dag replied angrily. “We could go to your fjord land and tell what happened to us here. If any of the families demand blod-wite of you, we will demand twice as much from them.”

  The captain of the langskip called out, “The moonlight is still bright enough to clear the fjord gut. If you want to go with us, you’ll have to hurry.”

  Birgit nodded to her brother. “All our people are dead. All is gone. I do not want to go back up there. I would like to go to Asleik’s fjord land and see that he gets fair justice.” She came over and put her hand on the youth’s arm and smiled up at him.

  The voyage, with a following wind and forty oars, took but two days. On the afternoon of the second day, the three passengers disembarked. The langskip went on its way.

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, Asleik led his companions up into the small valley where his father had his smithy. In truth he felt ashamed of what he had done. How was he going to be welcomed?

  He hesitated at the open doorway, hearing the familiar clang of Audmund’s heavy hammer on the iron anvil. He stepped inside. Dag and Birgit followed.

  Audmund looked up, surprised.

  “I have brought back the sword you made for Gorm,” Asleik said lamely. “I killed him.”

  “With the sword?”

  “No, I drowned him.”

  Audmund slowly put down the hammer and stood facing his son. “You drowned the jarl’s eldest son? Are you mad?”

  He turned to look at Dag and Birgit. “Who are these strangers?”

  Asleik quickly related the whole story. At its conclusion, the smith shook his head.

  “I warned you, my son. I have never told you, but once I was a berserk, and I know the strange, unexplainable power that comes over one when the berserk rage hits.

  “But you were so anxious to be an Odin’s man. I knew I could never keep you from your fey-doom.

  “What you have not learned is that a berserk is not really an Odin’s man at all. It’s something that goes back long ages before Odin was ever worshiped. The Lapps have this power. To them it is a part of their lives—the daily respect they give to the gods of old. Not Odin. But the old, old gods that still roam the great vastnesses of the snowy uplands.

  “It is a supernatural power. It comes only to some men, like a madness. It is a force that takes over the mind and body. No, my son, a berserk is not under the control of Odin but of much more evil forces, of ancient gods who yearn to depose the gods in Asgard. They will use any means to do mischief. Only the Lapps understand them.

  “It is a terrible thing to be a berserk. I am glad you have come back. We will face the great jarl together. And I welcome your new friends. I would have them become part of our family.”

  He took the warrior sword from Asleik’s hand. “I made this for Gorm because he was the jarl’s son. But when he blood-quenched it in the Lapp’s body, I had a sudden vision from the Lapp that it could never be used to harm you. Sometimes, my son, we too can use the supernatural powers to our own advantage.

  “If you truly want to be an Odin-man, Asleik Audmundsson, you will do what I have done. As I told you once before, the making of a good warrior sword is as good as being a warrior ., . and much better than being a berserk.”

  Trial of the Blood

  K. M. O’Donnell

  This man was possessed by a lust for human blood;

  he drank it insatiably, and yet he was repulsed by his

  craving.

  June 16

  I think, I think this: it was not cruelty which drove me on but rather an excess of feeling, a need to touch, to burst through the barriers we create against one another and know, then, the naked, vulnerable human heart, I do believe this, I am not a cruel man, I derive no satisfaction emotionally from what I have been forced to do, I am seized by regret and remorse at almost all of the worst moments…and yet, and yet, what is the point? I must go on. I do the necessary as do we all. And now, my powers at last deserting me, I confront what has happened and know that it could have been no other way.

  Out into the tangled landscape again this evening, prowling the corridors of this ruined country, dead kings and warriors seeming to glint at me through the forests, the broken paths, leaping and stumbling through this abandoned country that will (I see this) some day be overtaken by machinery that will break the landscape to shreds, into an isolated house that I had marked down upon my sheets as a marginal possibility months ago (now, exhausted, I am down to the marginal possibilities) and into the bedrooms, passing through the locks with old cunning, seeing the sleepers: an old man, an old woman, another old man, an old man…age, age, senescence, dust, death, and at the end of the hallway one last bedroom where the virgin slept. I know she must have been a virgin. In my mind, at least, all of them are untouched: no one knows better than I or ever will their corruption, the rotting of the flesh, the unspeakable pleasures which even the most innocent-appearing of them have indulged shrieking…but in the cool, gray abscesses of the mind all is purity. I saw her. She saw me, her eyes fluttering to connection. We looked upon one another. She stroked a hand against her mouth like a butterfly. “No,” she said, “no.” I spread my cloak apart so that she could see me. Her eyes terrified, glazed over with knowledge. My reputation, you see, has gotten around in these parts. I fell atop her without preamble. I sank—ah, God!—I sank my teeth into her neck, feeling the smooth pearl of the skin part. She thrashed against me like a fish. I held her down easily with my weight. I put in my tongue. I drank.

  And drank of her until the white of the skin that had blended with the sheet faded to gray, her struggles, dying, locked her body rigid against mine and then finally, finally I pulled away from her, shaking, and
left that room. In the corridors, the quiet singing of the wind against the shutters.

  I was weeping. Remorse and recrimination, gentlemen, have me in their clutches. But what can I do? Considering the situation, and I am sure that you will in your ponderous gravity, assessing and understanding all…what could I do?

  At home, sleeping, I dreamed of her. In the dream her blood had become a sea and I dived through it, singing.

  June 17

  A man of means, a man of substance, moderate nobility coursing through these veins, earldoms and fiefs clamoring in the background generations past…yes, I am not an ordinary assassin, not the casual beast but a murderer of some distinction and to be understood only in this way. Writing these notes, leaning over my desk, supporting the weight of my collapsing frame—I do not sleep well, I have terrible dreams—I feel a sense of power, of resonance and maybe it is this which takes me to this diary because I cannot be ignored, I cannot be allowed to pass, I must leave some small legacy of explanation which will finally render my position clear; it is unfair that I have done so much and yet what will be remembered (if any of this is; perhaps there is no future of any kind for all of us) is merely atrocity. The landscape runs with blood and terror, houses are boarded up, the constabulary continue their hopeless search for what is described as a fiend …and of purpose, of intention, nothing is known at all. Fear has overcome understanding. I am not a fiend but a man of substance, moderate nobility coursing through these veins…

  “I did this,” I wanted to say over her body last night, “I did this for love, for necessity, for the connection. I did it because I wanted to take your blood and body unto me in the-most ancient and sacramental of all the rituals, I wanted to possess you utterly and make your flesh whole. For love, for love, that was all I wanted!” I could have shouted but her blood had run out over the sheets in little anguished droplets, her body had broken on the bed like an hourglass and nothing to say then, only flee the room, flee that damned house, run through that landscape like a loon and finally to this ruined, cluttered castle itself, the specters of ancient earldom staggering through and I know that whatever I do and however I try no one will ever understand but the word fiend. Only in these notes can I make it clear; I will continue this journal, I have a certain alacrity with the language, smattering of education, bit of literacy, am pleased with this means of expression and if I can only —only get it down straight…

  I feel the urge coming over me again.

  June 18

  Further and further in my adventures; now I must go miles from this castle to conduct my intricate business. The surrounding populace is terrified, chains, bolts, guards, fires, all-night watches by the citizenry in the wake of the girl’s funeral this morning, an event which the entire village, I am led to believe, attended…it is more and more difficult to continue these tasks which I thought at the beginning reasonably controlled, carefully attended, would sustain me until the need had passed. But the need has not passed, I must admit this: the taste of blood has brought the blood-craving and now I cannot sleep or think for the thought of blood … . will there ever be an end to this? Miles from the castle in this morning’s dawn, leaping the weeds like a dog, I felt a dread depression for the first time: how long can I go on this way? And if the fear spreads as it is seeming to, throughout the country, will I be reduced to waylaying travelers in the fields? This a very tricky business. I do not know; I bounded and sniffed, fired with desire and then, as if a dream, saw in the weeds, a child sleeping. I advanced upon the child slowly, slowly, saw as it turned that it was a young boy and for one stumbling instant considered: I have never before attacked a child and it was with a feeling of ominousness, of a line crossed never to be traversed over again, that I fell upon the boy in the bushes and attached my mouth to his neck, biting, biting down, taking the neck in that familiar spot, smaller and more fervent than I had ever known it and, sinking the teeth in, heard that recollected shriek as never before, a high, pitiful whine and I could, oh, God, have still stopped then and fled, the boy was uninjured but shocked, he never would have caught me, but I could not stop, the first taste of blood pricked up the hairs of the scalp like insects and the hunger was uncontrollable, I savaged him violently and oh what dreams he must have had then, rising from sleep to death and falling back then upon the grass as I drained him.

  Now, strangely at ease, my head and mouth buzzing with sticky memories, I look out from the window to see two men approaching the door downstairs. Local officials. They are pounding on the door. They wish to see me.

  I wipe my mouth again and inspect it in the glass, then go down to greet them. Part of me, part of me— I admit this—wants discovery because it will allow me to make my explanations to the world, but another, more intelligent part, that wants to live for blood another day, does not. They stand now cautiously, still serfs in the presence of the fiefdom, their hands apologetically clasped as they wait for response…and I know that I will have no trouble with these.

  June 19

  I could not sleep. After the interview I resolved to be cautious for some days, allow the terror to subside, but at midnight I sat on the bed, all fibers trembling, and knew that I must drink again. The constabulary are confused, there are no clues, I had no difficulty in getting rid of my two visitors, already sunk by class differences into a pool of trepidation; yes, I have heard of these horrid events, gentlemen, who has not heard of them? yes, I am entirely dismayed, no, I have myself observed nothing amiss in the neighborhood, yes, I am taking protective measures, no, I have no idea of who the assailant might be, yes, I will cooperate fully with any developing investigation, no, there are no clues. No clues, no ideas, no assistance, gentlemen; I am sorry! and they took their leave of these premises as, I regret to say, some of my victims have taken leave of their senses, quickly, gracelessly, shambling off the terrain. And now I sit hunched over these notes like a snail knowing, knowing that all wise counsel would lead me to desist for a few days, few days! few weeks is more like it, until the investigation has collapsed into false evidence or futility or until some hapless peasant has been brought in and charged with the crimes. I should stop! lay low! solder my forces together! but I cannot and I know that before the sun has come, I will go a-hunting again.

  I know that what I have done, what I seek to do comes not from cruel or cold impulses but from love, love! of all humanity, a desire as I have already said I think (I never review these entries after I have written them; the moment to be seized is the next and the past is but a dream) for connection, blending, a fusion of forces, but I am gravely misunderstood, throughout the countryside my motives have never been approbated but they have been ignored and my two visitors spoke of “atrocities” with lowered eyes, referring delicately to certain “wounds about the neck and facial features” which marked the assailant as a “madman” and how I wanted to cry unto them no madman but one who would turn the ancient ritual to fresh necessity but said nothing of the sort of course, sitting quietly, rubbing nobleman’s fingers into a palm, tapping a foot on the floor and giving quick little twitching nods of assent so that they would believe in my own horror of these crimes. In part I want to be caught and to confess, this is true, but, I do not want to confess and be caught; if they can have me I will tell them all but cannot myself into their hands willingly commit. And now the need is strong within me; the need growing like seed within the vitals and I can barely hold this pen any longer; I must go upon the fields like a hound and show them, show them that I am no fiend, but destined for the purposes of love.

  June 20

  Now I think of torture. Blood is weak liquid; it will not serve indefinitely and what I am beginning to understand is that my error in taking my victims might have been the absence of confrontation: one shuddering grasp in the night, one thrust of the mouth, shrieks, whines and death following but that singing instant in which they would see me and understand what is being done to them and what has been lacking. There must be something darker and stronger,
I must bind them and bring them to awareness.

  I do not know what is happening to me, I fear that I am losing control and yet the thoughts of torture would strike one more as a gaining of control, would they not? a supersedence, sense of motion, accession to a higher mountain of purpose and yet six decaying generations of vanished nobility do admonish and hold me back. Is it right, Count? they seem to want to know. Do you really think that these are acts of nobility? Have you considered your forebears and your history? I cannot rip these little threads of advisement from my consciousness, they run through and around like bright ribbons and yet I know now that until I do so I will never be free. Must go on, I must go on then if I am to plant that seed of love which will flower and in two hundred years will cover the continent in its fields of yellow and red, blazing.

  Not to talk upon what happened in the moors last night. Never to talk about it. That is a closed incident. That is finished. I will not think of it and instead will meditate upon the antique and honorable history of torture which, as we know, has been used by the best governments throughout all of the ages, for the betterment of men and the continued ascension toward their goals. Can a man be less than his governments? or must he, rather, strive ever to be more?

  June 21

  Curiously spiritless today; able to accomplish nothing. A feeling of sea change, movement toward another level, uninterested in blood, no thoughts of the cords of the neck snapping as incline the head toward the perpetrator. No thoughts of any kind; moving underwater like an unformed creature of the depths, heading toward another shoal.