He saw the pack with the hammers and his belongings just as the dark shape behind the leaves moved at the far end of the glade. There was no chance he’d get to them in time.
Boy stepped out into the clearing, holding a big mug carefully. Big-eyed, he gestured to the mug.
Audun grinned. ‘Thank you.’ The words had only just escaped his mouth when Boy tripped on a root, sending a big gulp of water flying. The terror on his face forced a loud, barking laugh out of Audun, and the angry scowl set off another burst of laughing. ‘You are good company, Boy,’ he said once he’d recovered.
Boy looked genuinely upset as he handed him the mug, and Audun said, ‘Calm down. It’s just water. Thank you. Did you have to go far to fetch it?’ Boy didn’t appear to understand the question and Audun repeated it, looking intently at his face.
Boy seemed to snap out of some kind of trance-state, shook his head and looked towards the pack. Moving quickly, he walked over to busy himself with what meagre supplies they had.
‘Suit yourself,’ Audun muttered and lifted the mug to his lips. Man, but he was thirsty. The water was cool and refreshing. He downed the remaining contents of the mug in one and burped loudly.
‘Thank you again!’ he said to Boy, but the kid didn’t seem to hear. A brief spark of annoyance lit. ‘I said “thank you”,’ Audun repeated. ‘And I’m sorry I laughed at you.’
Boy turned then. ‘That’s okay,’ he said in a bright, clear voice.
Audun felt like he’d been slapped. ‘You can – talk?’
‘Of course I can,’ Boy said.
Suddenly Audun felt very cold. The lad’s accent was unmistakeable. ‘You’re from—’
‘Stenvik. Yes.’
Audun pushed his back against the tree and tried to use his good leg to gain height, but it was hopeless. He felt weak – weak and ill. He slumped back down. ‘What have you done?’
‘You’re ill. You need medicine.’
‘You little shit! You’ve poisoned me?’
Boy looked less sure of himself now. He’d taken the pack and retreated across the glade. The words tumbled out: ‘No, it’s not poison – the master said you were ill, that you were war-crazy and I should give you the medicine and you’d be all right once he got to see you.’
‘Who?’ His words slurred and he felt a growing chest pain, like he was sinking down into the black winter sea. Boy spoke, but Audun could no longer make out the words. Everything was blurry, and the ground suddenly looked warm and inviting. He tried to imagine the forge, but he couldn’t see it clearly.
‘Who?’ he managed again.
He could only just make out Boy inching closer, looking at him like a hunter studying a dying wolf. Audun could feel his heart slowing down now as the fire within him was snuffed out. ‘Who said that?’ he muttered.
The last word he heard before he died was, ‘Valgard.’
*
His nerves were on fire and his spine felt like it had been raked by a steel claw. Audun’s eyes opened again, and the black, hard core behind his breastbone was a clump of ice. He drew breath again, a man twice drowned. Hot and cold shivers shook his body and cold sweat poured out of him.
When his vision returned, the first thing he saw was Boy, staring at him in horror. ‘You … died,’ he stammered.
‘Fuck your medicine,’ Audun snarled. He pushed off the tree again and got his one good leg under him. He was almost up when he felt his veins constricting, tightening, pulling his arms in, crushing his body into itself. ‘And fuck your master,’ he hissed between clenched teeth.
The world spun, twirled and twisted and he crashed to the ground, gasping for a breath that never came.
*
When he came to again, the thin strip of light he could see suggested morning had arrived. His body felt like it had been smashed with a hammer. Everything hurt, from his hair to his toenails. Audun closed his eyes, willing the pain to go away.
It didn’t.
A wracking cough shook him and the sour taste of bile followed as he threw up the contents of his stomach.
‘He’s not so terrifying now, is he?’
Someone at his back.
‘Tie him up, sling him on a horse and home we go,’ another said. Familiar voice. Olgeir again.
Audun twisted around.
There were five of them: Olgeir, the big man off the boat, and three wiry sailors.
‘Good morning,’ Olgeir said. ‘How are you feeling?’ Audun bit back his first response – he didn’t even glare. Instead, he smiled.
In his mind, he could see the forge. ‘Me?’ he asked. ‘Why don’t you ask your boy instead?’ He flooded his body with fire, pushing the hurt away, and propped himself up onto his elbow. ‘Why don’t you ask your boy,’ he continued, ‘how well he kept his balance when he brought me the mug?’ Audun pushed with his arms until he was sitting up. His body throbbed with pain, but he ignored it.
‘Why don’t you ask,’ he said, taking care to move slowly, as if he were in full control of his movements, ‘whether he managed to give me the full dose of whatever it was?’ Audun pulled himself up to his full height and cricked his neck.
Behind the five men, Boy’s face went ashen, and he slunk off into the forest, his pack in hand.
The sailors exchanged looks.
‘If you want to turn around and fuck right off, we can forget about this,’ Audun said. ‘If not – well, we’ve fought together for a week and a bit now. You’ve seen what I can do.’
Olgeir swallowed. ‘You’re bluffing,’ he said with a sneer.
‘Am I? Come on, then,’ Audun said.
No one moved.
‘Bjorn,’ Olgeir said. The big man looked at him, then at Audun. ‘He’s weak. Go on.’
The bearded man stood a head taller than Audun. He grinned. His mouth was a gaping wound of broken and rotten stumps. His callused hands formed into rock-like fists. ‘Want me to smash him around?’
‘Whatever you like,’ Olgeir said.
Audun furtively tested his wounded leg. It supported his weight, but only just.
Bjorn squared up against him and advanced, his massive fists raised.
Audun took two steps forward and felt a wave of nausea wash over him as the poisoned water sloshed around in his gut.
‘This is not right!’ a familiar voice shouted. ‘Shame on you, Audun Arngrimsson!’ The sailors turned around as a tall man entered the glade midway between them and Audun. His face was drawn and his long, black hair hung in limp, wet strands, but he moved with ease. He wielded two blacksmith’s hammers; a pack was slung off his left shoulder. He moved like a man strolling into a friend’s house as he grinned and nodded at Olgeir and the three sailors.
‘How so?’ Audun said, a grin spreading across his own face.
‘There’s one of you,’ the man said, throwing first one, then the other hammer towards Audun. ‘But only five of them.’
The spell was broken the moment Audun plucked the hammers out of the air.
‘Go! For fuck’s sake, go!’ Olgeir screamed and Bjorn launched himself towards Audun – and screamed in pain as his right fist smashed straight into a hammer. His left hand did connect, however, sending Audun spinning away.
Three long steps sent Ulfar into the middle of the glade, past the sailors, and the long, thin blade at his hip hissed as it left the scabbard; a single whip-like stroke and it was in front of him, pointing at the sailor in the middle.
To his left, the sailor’s companion collapsed with a wet gurgle as his brain and his breathing caught up with his severed windpipe and a stream of jugular blood welled up from the man’s open throat.
The smell of blood kicked the two remaining sailors into action and they moved together to advance on Ulfar, sturdy swords drawn.
‘Aren’t you boys annoyed that you forgot your shields?’ Ulfar said conversationally. A lightning-quick swipe forced one of the sailors into a very clumsy backwards hop even as Ulfar twisted back and down to avoid a flying fis
t-sized rock.
Olgeir glared at him, then turned towards Bjorn, who was staring straight ahead in mute horror, his bloodied right hand forgotten.
The giant looked at his left hand, then at Audun. ‘You can’t do that!’ he rumbled.
But Audun was standing up.
More than that, he was smiling, even as his jaw swelled grotesquely and blood dripped from his lips and gums. It did nothing to make him more attractive.
‘Told you,’ Ulfar shouted. ‘He gets really annoyed when you hit him.’
Sparks flew as Audun bashed his hammers together and advanced on Bjorn. Olgeir’s next missile smashed into his hip with an audible crack, but it didn’t even slow him down.
The hammers sang and Bjorn’s head was a mess of blood and bone. Without missing a beat, Audun shouldered his body out of the way and turned towards Olgeir.
‘Tell me who sent you and I’ll make him stop,’ Ulfar shouted.
Olgeir’s eyes were wide open and his mouth worked to catch up with his brain as he shuffled backwards. ‘Valgard! It was Valgard! He said to bring the big guy in!’
‘To where?’ Ulfar shouted.
‘North! North! He went north with King Olav! To Trondheim!’ Olgeir screamed, but too late: he had backed into a tree and his tunic caught on a branch as Audun bore down on him.
The raw terror in their leader’s voice was contagious. The two remaining sailors turned and ran away as fast as they could.
Ulfar didn’t need to look to know Olgeir was dead. The crunching sounds told the tale.
Audun spun and faced Ulfar. Globs of blood dripped off him, off his jaw and his chin, off his shoulders and his chest, off the edges of his hammers. Behind him, an unsightly mass of red that had once been Olgeir slumped to the ground.
Ulfar froze.
The blond Norseman blinked, grimaced and shook his head, sending droplets flying. ‘Took you long enough,’ he muttered. Then his eyes rolled up into his head, his knees buckled and the big blacksmith passed out.
The mouth of the cave was much bigger than Valgard had thought it would be. A gust of cold wind blew a dusting of fine powder across the shadows.
Behind him, Bug-Eye hawked and spat. ‘So, Chief – what now?’
Valgard bit back a sharp reply and took a deep breath before answering. ‘Torches,’ he said loudly. Behind him, Skapti’s men started working on cloth and pitch.
He glared at the trek-master, who stared back with all the malice of a milking cow and said, ‘Torches. Good idea.’ Flaring flames hissed at the cold and the snowflakes in the air as tongues of shifting light reached into the darkness, only to be pushed back again.
‘Come on, then,’ Valgard said. ‘At least we’ll be out of the wind.’ With little enthusiasm, his band of men inched forward.
The cave within ballooned out into a dome, three times the height of a man and about ten times as wide. Shadows grew and shrank as the men waved their torches around. The flickering light caught on some sort of markings – irregular blobs and strange stick-shapes. Once past the opening, the floor was surprisingly smooth.
‘Eyes,’ Skapti snapped and Valgard had to pull on all his reserves not to jump as the men, as one, drew their weapons.
‘What?’ he hissed.
Skapti reached out with his spear to a shadowy corner of the cave. Something dry rustled in the dark.
When he withdrew the spear, a human skull was hanging on it by the eye socket. The jaw was gone and the left side of the head was smashed in.
Gritting his teeth, Valgard turned and inched forward, deeper into the darkness.
At the far end, the cave narrowed and the ceiling lowered, turning the dome into a tunnel that sloped gently downwards. Now there was only space for five of them to walk abreast, so a line formed with Skapti and his men at the front, then Bug-Eye and Valgard a couple of steps behind them. The rustle of furs and the clink of weapons told Valgard how slowly the men were inching along.
The weight of the rock above their heads quenched the men’s chatter, and soon they were shuffling further into the mountain in silence. A good bit later, the tunnel branched.
‘Now what?’ Skapti said. His voice was loud in the tomb-like silence.
‘Send a handful of men along that branch,’ Valgard said, pointing. ‘Tell them to return with whatever they find. If it branches again, they are to turn back and wait for us here.’
The red-haired man issued a series of clipped commands and the seven men selected quickly disappeared down the tunnel, the light from their torches fading quickly. Within moments it was as if they’d never been there at all.
‘Onwards,’ Valgard said, trying hard to sound like he wasn’t worried.
The silence crept in around them. It was in the stones, in the slope of the floor. They’d walked a while longer when they found the second branch. Skapti just glanced at him, then sent another handful of men down that one.
More walking, more silence. The six remaining men shuffled along, torches swinging to illuminate every shadowy corner, but the points of their blades were slowly dropping. No one stayed alert for long where there was no danger.
‘So,’ Bug-Eye said, ‘what are we looking for?’
The roar washed over them, filling the space around them, bouncing off the cave walls and setting Valgard shaking with pure animal terror.
‘Blades!’ Skapti screamed as the shadows trembled into life and the bear burst out of the darkness, all bristling fur and bared fangs. He was easily the height of a man and more, and he filled most of the tunnel, leaving only a little space on the sides.
‘Move! Back!’ the front men screamed over each other, but the bear struck and the lead man in the middle folded, screaming as the claws opened him up and raked out his guts. The smell of sour blood in the tunnel only seemed to enrage the bear more.
Valgard froze. To his shame he found he’d wet himself.
When Bug-Eye finally moved, the fat man moved fast: a meaty arm shot across Valgard’s chest, slammed into him and lifted him off his feet. The old warrior turned and strode back up the tunnel dragging the healer as the four men behind him spread out and retreated slowly, using their spears to stab at the bear to keep it at bay.
A piercing scream told them the four were down to three.
Panicked shouting drifted towards them as they approached the second junction. The erratic flickering flames came to meet them, but too fast – much too fast. Three of the second group came sprinting up the slope, wild-eyed and frothing, brandishing the torches as more screaming and wet slurping sounds chased them. They sprinted ahead along the tunnel and Bug-Eye followed, dragging Valgard.
The healer found his feet as the slope began to level.
Five men were standing in a circle, torches out. Bug-Eye and Valgard joined them, and moments later so did Skapti, unarmed and covered in blood.
Standing in front of the opening, its fur the bluish-white of frozen snow, was the biggest snowbear Valgard had ever seen. The beast swung its head from side to side, sniffing the air and baring its fangs.
‘Torches,’ Bug-Eye muttered. ‘Not a bad idea.’
Rumbling growls heralded the arrival of the bears from the tunnel. Blood dripped from their jaws, and one of them had Skapti’s sword buried in its shoulder.
The white bear at the entrance roared, and the others answered in turn. As the beast stepped into the cave, a gale swept with it and battered their feeble flames. Daylight seeped in around its figure, offering a tantalising glimpse of snow-covered freedom.
‘Botolf!’ Skapti shouted.
A tall man stood in the entrance, half in light and half in shadow. A dark cape billowed behind him and the faint outline of a satchel was slung over his shoulder.
‘That’s not …’ Valgard’s voice died in his throat.
The man walked into the cave. The bears growled at him, but none of them stepped near. ‘I don’t think so, Father,’ he snarled. ‘He’s mine.’ The steel appeared in his hands almost instantly. A
s one, the bears stood on their hind legs and growled together, as if warning the intruder. The noise in the cave was deafening.
With a sound like an indrawn breath the flames went out, plunging the cave into grey half-light. As one, the men screamed and pushed their backs together. A wave of animal stink surrounded them, born on a fey wind that circled the cave, carrying shadow and sand and the sound of steel slicing veins, carving flesh. Roars bounded from wall to wall.
Moments later, the only sounds in the cave were the hoarse voices of eight men screaming.
‘Light,’ Valgard croaked. ‘Torches—’
Skapti fumbled with his fire-steel and got a torch flaring. The yellow light spread from the burning rags and illuminated drawn faces; each was as surprised as anyone at their continued existence.
Then they looked around.
The light reflected in growing pools of silky blackness. The bears lay where they’d been cut down, throats open and pulsing thick, dark blood. The stranger was wiping off his knife with a piece of cloth. His long, black hair glistened like raven’s feathers in the torchlight and his eyes gleamed with malice.
‘Out,’ he said. ‘And wait.’
Bug-Eye moved first, then Skapti and his men, then Valgard.
‘Not you.’ Valgard’s brain had not yet caught up and as he took two more steps the man said without looking at him, ‘I said, not you.’
His back seized up first, shortly followed by his legs and his shoulders. Pain like he’d never known exploded in his brain. The backs of his eyes hurt. His throat closed, and he tried and failed to gulp down air.
‘You’re staying.’
Whatever it was released its hold on him all at once and he became painfully aware of his piss-stained breeches.
‘For a little while, at least.’ A faint smile played on the stranger’s lips. ‘We’re going to have some words, you and me.’
*
The men were all waiting for Valgard when he came out, but none of them dared look him in the eye. Didn’t matter. He walked right past them, heading down to the longhouse.
He felt, more than heard, the men line up behind him.
The Valhalla Saga Page 57
