by Suzie Wilde
His face lit up. ‘Out on the sea paths?’
‘I have to find a narwhale.’
He turned away. ‘Then bring me and the dog back some fish, for you won’t find no narwhale.’
‘I will.’
Her new confidence must have shown in her voice, for he allowed her to help him and his dog aboard the boat, even when Falki moaned about the extra weight.
‘He can row,’ said Bera. ‘And if the wind stays light, you’ll be glad of it.’
Bera watched her village grow smaller. It clung to a ribbon of land where they scratched a living in the far north of the Ice-Rimmed Sea. Gales came early and midwinter lasted an age. She hated the grinding weight of snow and ice that trapped them ashore. In winter, all the quick and lively fish followed the whale roads, taking birds with them to battle in the pounding surge, or glide on sleepless wings over ocean rollers. Only blind monsters remained in the frigid darkness, slowly crawling after smaller ugliness with gaping mouths like sacks full of teeth. White mountains teetered over their home and the long forests were silent; suffocated and shapeless in vast drifts of snow. Whenever a wind blew, it was funnelled into a drilling blast that went either straight up or down the fjord. It was an endless night that swallowed the stars. It was the time of Drorghers.
Bera shook herself. Brighter days were coming but for now she was shrammed with cold, as though the walking dead were upon her. She wished it could always be summer, when waters chopped and boiled with sparkling silver shoals and the killers who surged in to eat them. Then there was a whirling soup of fins and teeth, spumes and spouts and crashing waves. Bera was always out fishing. It was more than getting food, for her; it was her joy.
‘What are you smiling about?’ Bjorn patted his rowing bench. ‘Thinking of me?’
His silly, lovesick face made Bera want to slap him. She lifted her face to feel the sun and breathe the soothing sea air – but the wind made her eyes stream. She pulled her hood round her face in case anyone thought she was weeping and then gave in and sat next to Bjorn.
Their boat butted through sluggish water whose chill seeped through the wooden hull and froze the bones.
‘Why did Ottar let Falki and his mate come?’ Bjorn asked.
‘I thought he told you. Falki’s wife died in the night.’
Bjorn made a face. ‘Less mouths to feed.’
‘Stop sounding like Ottar! Big Falki wants to save his sons. And we will.’
They hit rougher water and Bera was briefly thrown against him. Above them the striped sail creaked. It was old and patched but had been woven by Bera’s mother and folk believed it gave them the best luck.
‘Do you think Alfdis is watching over us?’
‘My mother is always with me.’ Bera crossed her fingers. She was as unsure of this as she was about her skern. ‘The sail won’t fill until we’re past the headland,’ she added, making sure they all heard.
The men bent to their oars and Agnar’s old dog settled against the stops. They were speeding towards the prospect of a narwhale she claimed was waiting for them. But where? Bera wished her skern would point the way but she was yet to find any appeal or sign that would make him appear. It was up to her to raise everyone’s spirits, including her own. She started Bjorn’s favourite song, with its rumbustious tune:
‘In the bones, in the bones
Feel the east wind in the rigging
And the boat-song in your bones.’
Bjorn took over, grinning at her.
‘In the blood, in the blood
Feel the rumble and the tumble
And the boat-song in your blood.’
Then they all finished together, lustily.
‘In the heart, in the heart
Feel the pulsing of the whale road
And the boat-song in your heart.’
They were a boat crew, joined in the love of the sea and a childhood song.
Bjorn mistook the feeling and tried to take her hand. Bera snatched it away. She needed him as a friend and hoped he would fix on some other girl soon. Or a widow.
‘Show me your necklace.’
‘No.’
‘I want to see the bead with my rune on it.’
‘The B is not your rune. It’s mine. Or possibly my grandmother’s.’
His lower lip jutted. ‘It’s the same rune, anyway.’
‘Stop sulking and help me raise the sail.’
The wind stayed fair and Bera felt confident that all would be well.
Until Seabost came into view, a filthy smudge on the steerboard side. To make themselves less visible to any Seabost lookouts, they got the yardarm down onto the deck and rowed. Bera took the end of Bjorn’s oar to help in the roiling sea. Their splashing oars sounded loud enough to wake the dead. She could smell tension, which was strongest near Bjorn.
‘Is your skern with you?’ he asked.
‘Some trading boats are in, look. How did Ottar know they were coming?’
‘They’ll see us!’
‘They’ll all be drunk.’
‘You hope.’
Blind Agnar spat. ‘Seabost, it smells like dead flesh.’
The hairs on Bera’s arms rose with fear.
‘Is my skern here?’ Bjorn asked her.
‘Stop asking about skerns! You’ll bring yours if you keep talking about it. You’re years away from dying.’
‘Am I?’
‘You’re still a baby.’
‘I’m not!’
‘Well, I’m glad Sigrid let you come.’
‘I don’t need a mother’s say-so. I’m old enough to do as I please.’
Bera smiled. Teasing Bjorn always made him forget his fear.
‘Keep your voices down, young ’uns,’ said Falki.
Their little fishing boat seemed to stand still in the water in plain view. If a lookout did see them the reprisal would be swift and brutal. Bera dreaded seeing warships setting off from the jetties. Her nerves snagged her breath and she felt sick. Any moment now she would surely hear the rattle of lines and rigging as the Seabost fleet launched and she would be tested.
‘Not many boats,’ Falki said softly.
‘Perhaps they’re off on raids.’
Bjorn pushed up his sleeve and scratched at the scar on his arm, made by a Seabost fisherman’s boathook. They had come poaching one season and Bjorn’s temper had got him into an uneven fight.
‘Those raiding boats won’t come back today, will they?’ he asked.
No one answered.
Very, very slowly, Seabost was passing and no alarm sounded. Bera kept scanning all the time, still fearing an attack, but nothing stirred. Then, at last, she saw some dark shapes. Fishermen had described them to her but not done them justice. Each had sheer cliffs that jutted out of the troubled sea at impossible angles.
‘The Skerries!’
‘Them islands are pips spat out by troles,’ said Agnar.
Bera laughed at him. But she felt uneasy as they closed the islands. The whole group looked like a mouth of jagged teeth that they were about to enter. Would it snap shut and swallow them?
Bera pushed away her fear. ‘The narwhale’s here somewhere,’ she declared. ‘And I will find it.’
Now they were out in clear water, it was Agnar’s turn to steer. He turned his cheek to the wind but Bera sat on a barrel beside him in case he went off course and gently pulled at his hound’s ears. She was sure Agnar brought her luck.
‘That old dog’s got no answers.’ Agnar knew her too well. ‘Tell me what you see.’
‘We’re passing the waterfall where the bears go to die. There was a mist earlier but it’s clearing and a rainbow is touching the water. Way above its arch is a sea eagle, gliding inland to the mountains. The peaks are snowy but there are white streaks where every stream is flowing.’ Saying it aloud made Bera feel its beauty. The last word came out in a sob, as if she would never see such a sight again.
‘See an island with three horns?’
‘O
nly one with a sort of nose sticking out.’
‘That’s the Trole. The horned one’s behind it.’ Agnar sniffed deeply for its trace. ‘All kinds of whale beach themselves there, oftentimes.’
‘I can’t see any horns,’ said Bera.
‘That’s where the whales go.’ Agnar’s voice was small. ‘Leastways, they used to.’
Some burrs and thorns were caught in the dog’s rough fur and Bera teased them out, trying to think what to say to the others. They were in enemy waters. She wanted a quick raid, not a dangerous search – and she daren’t let them see her uncertainty.
Falki rested his oar. ‘Where’s this narwhale then, girl? That’s the last island before open sea. You taking us over the Ice Rim? Because I don’t think you’ve got the guts.’
He spoke to her without respect. Bera feared she wasn’t worth any.
‘Got to have faith in this world, Falki,’ said Blind Agnar.
‘You should be dead, you and that hound both.’
Bera’s flash of anger made her feel better. ‘Ottar pays you to row.’
‘Breaking my back for nothing,’ he grunted, but took up the stroke.
His mate was strong and they bent to it, driving the hull through the waves and butting out into the longer swell. As they got closer to the land it became clear that what had seemed to be all one island was in fact two. The second had horns.
Bera pictured a cleft between the cliffs, and then a shingle beach, a gnarled tree. The truth of her skern’s vision made her scalp tingle. Or perhaps it was the dangerous opening.
Bera took the helm. ‘You need to row again, Agnar.’
‘It’s a tricky entrance, mind.’
Tiny scraps of white, like specks of ash, spiralled in the breeze. They were countless sea birds, soaring up or swooping down onto shoals that seethed in the iron-grey waves. Bera steered for the cleft, where water restlessly churned.
Bjorn’s oar jerked skywards. ‘These breakers’ll have us over!’
‘Not when I’m steering, so row properly!’
Bjorn’s fright made his skern flicker around him like an early dusk.
Furious with him, Bera boldly brought them into the lee of the island. Several long dark tusks emerged out of the calm water.
‘I’m right! Narwhales!’ Bera punched the air, grinning, then gathered her dignity and solemnly added, ‘There are many.’
Bera reckoned there were more than twelve in the pod, including females. Some were young and only slightly mottled; last year’s calves, perhaps. The oldest male was livid white with dark scars. Runes? He was the one.
‘Corpse whales,’ said Bjorn. ‘They say they’re the bodies of drowned sailors.’
‘Rare as hen’s teeth,’ said Agnar. ‘See their tusks, boy? Magic, they are.’
‘I’ll take one spear,’ said Bera, forcing herself to do the thing she most dreaded. Her scalp prickled painfully. ‘Who’ll take the other?’
Bjorn snatched it.
Falki gave a low growl. ‘Them’ll dive deeper than any other beast and not come up for days.’
‘I know,’ said Bjorn. ‘My father missed killing one off Seal Island once. He nearly froze waiting and gave up.’
Bera could sense that Falki didn’t seem happy about leaving their prize to two youngsters but, as Ottar always said, money talks. Besides, much of the skill was manoeuvring the boat so that the strike could be made. He gave the stroke and the men set to rowing.
Bjorn made sure the rope was lashed tight to their spears.
‘Are the creatures drowned men?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bera. ‘Remember that story about a young Valla who was thrown into the sea for loving the wrong man? She came back from the depths as a narwhale.’
‘Don’t you go and fall in.’
Bera refused to look at him, hoping he would soon stop this new doting.
The narwhales were gently rubbing each other’s tusks, then pointing them up to the sky.
‘What do they do that for?’ Bjorn asked.
‘Perhaps it’s a dance.’
‘A mating dance.’
Now she felt even worse about killing the narwhale. She called on her skern but he did not reply. Bera pictured the sick folk at home that the tusk could heal. It was the balance of nature that Vallas respected. She was there to keep folk safe, as she had promised Sigrid to protect Bjorn.
But her scalp warned of something, and besides, she just couldn’t kill it. She would not show weakness, though.
‘I’m better at helming. Falki, take the spear.’
He was quickly in place. Bera saw an opening and drove the boat through the middle of the pod to separate the large male from the others. She ran the boat beside him and when they were sure of the target Falki and Bjorn let fly with their spears. The beast roared and tried to dive but was held by the ropes, fastened at one end to the boat, which tipped and rocked. The men tried to keep it balanced while Bera went with it. Falki took the killing spear, steadied, then drove it cleanly through the narwhale’s eye. Wild beasts had no skerns but as it died Bera caught a glimpse of something coiling like smoke around its tusk, which shocked her.
‘What have you seen?’ Bjorn’s face was so white she could see the blue veins at his temple.
‘Stop staring at me like a boggelman! Let’s take this tusk and get going.’
They towed the beast to shore. Its females followed, slowly. Bera could not bear the sound of their keening.
As soon as the boat was beached Bjorn went to study the twisted tusk. ‘I wonder what it’s for?’
‘Always asking what things are for! I’ll tell you. It’s for protecting us from any bad thing. Remember that.’
‘It’s you that should remember it!’ Bjorn stomped back to the boat.
He was right – and she would say so later. It was just that this first killing filled her with strange dread. Scavenging a dead whale was different; it was making use of what Fate gave them, but this... No wonder her scalp flared. And waste made it all worse. Could any good come from killing the whole beast just to get its tusk?
The whorled spear was almost twice as long as her. She went to touch it but then snatched her hand away when she felt its power. There was something questing about it, as though the beast used its tusk like she used her skern. Or would, if he was ever reliable.
‘I’m sorry, Old One,’ she whispered. ‘I promise to use it wisely.’
Bera pictured their triumphant passage home in the dark with stars like buttermilk. They would sing in the joy of seafaring and she would be proud of healing the sick.
Agnar’s dog charged at the body and then shied away, as if stung. It brought Bera back to the present. The men returned with saws and axes.
‘Can’t we take all of it?’ Bera asked. ‘The body looks as good as a right whale.’
‘Slow us down, towing it,’ said Falki, who got to work.
‘What’s Bjorn doing?’ Bera asked.
‘Sulking.’
They decided it was easiest to chop off the whole head. Bera looked away, to where the narwhales were heading out to sea, their tusks raised in a final salute. It made her think of Sigrid. Falki’s wife and Sigrid gutted fish together. What if she’d given Sigrid the sickness? Perhaps that’s why her scalp was prickling, because Sigrid was in danger! The narwhale had to die to save Sigrid.
‘The tide’s turning,’ she said. ‘You carry this to the boat while I say some words of thanks.’
There was a sudden clatter of shingle and there was Bjorn, fallen face down on the beach. Bera laughed and then froze. A longboat with Seabost sails had entered the channel.
‘Too late,’ she said. ‘They’ve seen us.’
Bjorn scrambled up beside the others. Each man put a hand on his knife-sheath. Here she was, full of doubts on a beach where a noble beast had been killed. Had she been wrong to do it? Was a blood debt to be paid? She grasped her necklace, given to her by her mother, passed on by her mother before her, but had no sen
se that they were with her. She willed her skern to do something, anything, but there was no help. The men were watching her, so she tried to sound like a Valla.
‘We own this tusk by right,’ she said.
‘Seabost don’t ever see it like that.’ Agnar drew his dog to him and kept a hand on its neck.
‘Are we going to die?’ Bjorn’s voice was high.
‘She didn’t see this coming,’ sneered Falki. ‘No good asking her.’
The men spat on their hands, made the hammer sign from head to belly, shoulder to shoulder, then planted their feet steady. Bera turned her thoughts inward, trying to find some Valla strength of her own, but there was only chattering panic.
The enemy’s hull rattled the stones, three men leapt ashore and pulled the boat up the beach with practised speed. The ones who followed carried swords. All wore the blue cloaks of Seabost, crusted with dried blood.
‘Them’s bad men, girl. What’d you bring us to?’
Falki and his mate had knives and nets in their hands, ready for a fishermen’s fight. It was all they knew.
The enemy advanced slowly. Their faces were grimed and savage. Two weren’t much older than Bera, but were taller and as hardened as their elders, one of whom had a badly broken nose, flat against his face. The last man off the boat was the worst. He had a recent scar that ran right down one side of his face, pulling his top lip upwards in a sneer. The slashing violence was visible.
He unsheathed his sword with the easy movement of a killer.
Bera’s mouth was glued with terror but she had to try and speak. Ottar had raised her to face fear. She wanted to run so made herself step towards them instead.
‘We are from the small village further up the fjord.’ Her voice betrayed her.
‘Crapsby,’ said Flat-Nose, making the others laugh.
‘Home,’ said Falki.
Bera tried to drag her eyes away from the swordsman’s vivid scar. ‘My skern, my... spirit guide, told me the narwhale was here to stop the sickness in our village. It is not theft. He foretold it and we took it with our own skill.’
Flat-Nose spoke again. ‘This island belongs to Seabost, and so does everything on it. You get back to Crapsby now, or die.’
