by Nancy Farmer
Jack watched Sven the Vengeful and Eric Pretty-Face demonstrate the best way to crack a skull. Thorgil was so inspired, she lined up a row of deer heads and smashed them with a club. There was no point asking them about the life force. Sighing, he found Lucy playing with little wooden figures whittled by Olaf for her entertainment.
There was a cow, a horse, a man, and a woman. Lucy had made a fence out of sticks and had drawn the outline of a house in the sand. Bold Heart watched her intently. He picked up the cow and dropped it. Lucy squealed, and the crow bobbed up and down in apparent glee. He picked up the horse.
“Make him stop!” said Lucy, smacking at the bird. He jumped easily out of her reach. Jack grabbed the horse from Bold Heart’s beak and planted it back in front of the little girl. Bold Heart preened his feathers, looking completely uninterested. A second later he scooped up the man and flew to a nearby rock.
Lucy screamed. Sven the Vengeful dropped his axe on Eric Pretty-Face’s foot, starting a vigorous argument.
“Stop that! Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?” Jack cried. Why am I talking to a stupid bird? he thought. But Bold Heart understood! He flew back and laid the toy in front of Lucy.
“About time,” she grumbled.
Sven the Vengeful and Eric Pretty-Face stopped quarreling and grabbed the charms they wore about their necks. “Sei er,” muttered Sven. They walked away, casting nervous glances over their shoulders.
“Say-thur,” repeated Jack. “What’s that?”
“It means ‘witchcraft,’” said Thorgil, looking up from her skull-smashing game. “We don’t like witches. Sometimes”—she smiled—“we throw them into bogs to drown.”
Bold Heart made a pass just over her head. Thorgil yelled and ducked. “See? That’s what I mean! You’re a witch and that bird is your familiar! It’s not natural for crows to stay up after dark. It’s not natural to talk to them. Both of you should be drowned in a bog.” Bold Heart made another pass—claws out this time—and Thorgil ran off with her hands protecting her scalp.
Jack stood frozen, watching her grab Olaf’s arm. She started arguing, but unfortunately for her, she’d interrupted the giant in the middle of something important. Olaf sent her sprawling to the ground. “Hold your noise with that witch nonsense!” he shouted. The shield maiden, spitting curses, picked herself up and staggered off.
Jack sat down to think. Thorgil wouldn’t give up that easily. She’d wait for an opportunity and attack again. He had to think of a way to protect himself.
He saw nothing wrong with talking to animals. Mother did it all the time, singing to calm the bees or to gentle a frightened ewe. She’d taught him her small magic, and Jack had never thought twice about it. Did that make him a witch? And what about Bold Heart? He did fly around after dark like an owl.
Right now Bold Heart was sitting in front of Lucy. He made little chuckling noises. “I know I should have chickens on a farm,” she replied. “Olaf didn’t make any.”
More chuckling.
“I could use these seashells for them. That’s a good idea.”
Jack’s head began to ache. Now Lucy was talking to the crow, and the warriors would think she was a witch. “Bedtime,” he ordered, sweeping up the toys. Lucy complained loudly. Jack dragged her to a heap of furs and tucked her in. “I’ll tell you a story,” he said.
“It better be a good one,” she said.
Bold Heart flew to a nearby tree and perched on a branch over Cloud Mane’s head. The horse shifted his feet nervously. Bold Heart made purring noises, and Cloud Mane closed his eyes again. It was weird how the bird had adopted them. He flew off every day and Jack expected him to disappear, but he always came back.
I wish the Bard were here, Jack thought sadly. I hope he’s happy on the Islands of the Blessed. I wish I really was a witch. I’d turn every one of the Northmen into toads—except Rune. And I’d turn Thorgil into a slimy earthworm and feed her to Olaf.
Chapter Eighteen
The Sea of Trolls
The air turned cold and more clouds filled the sky as they went north. Fog showed up earlier and stayed longer. The shoreline became steeper. Olaf urged his men to row swiftly. “We’re almost home!” he bellowed. “We carry great wealth! We’re covered with honor! We’re the Queen’s Berserkers!” The men burst into the song that ended with Fame never dies.
“The Queen’s Berserkers?” said Jack. “I thought you served the king.”
“Yes, well, he hasn’t quite been himself since he got married,” admitted Olaf.
“That’s why we call him Ivar the Boneless,” said Sven.
“Only not to his face,” said the giant. “I can hardly wait to hear the song you’ve written about me. You can perform it at the welcome-home party.” Olaf looked radiant at the prospect of showing off his personal bard before the king and queen.
Jack tried to appear enthusiastic. He had a wonderful poem, courtesy of Rune, but it had so many complicated words, Jack was sure he was going to mess up. Which would be a very grave mistake, Rune told him, with the emphasis on grave.
Soon the mist closed in, and while it wasn’t thick, it was damp and depressing. Jack understood why the Northmen couldn’t dry their own salt. Now and then the mist parted to show a forbidding scene. Waves clashed against cliffs. Rifts in the shoreline led to gloomy and barren valleys. It looked like a place dragons would love.
“Those are fjords,” said Olaf, who was all smiles now that he was about to be fêted and praised.
“Does anything live back there?” said Jack, peering into an especially grim inlet.
“Nothing good,” said the giant, laughing. “Of course, we live at the end of a fjord. But we aren’t good either.”
You can say that again, thought Jack.
“I fought my first Jotun in one of those,” Olaf said. “I was only a beardless youth, and the troll still had his baby fangs. Ah, where does the time go?”
“You won, I suppose.”
“Of course. Warriors who don’t defeat their trolls get eaten. I’ll tell you about it sometime so you can write a poem.” Olaf continued reminiscing about his youth. He knew every rock and tree along the coast. His memory was fantastic, and soon Jack was sorry he’d asked questions.
They came to a place where the land broke off. The sea became rougher, and a wind rose and blew the mist away. The view thus revealed was anything but cheerful. Great swells rolled from the north under a strange milky sky. The water was pale green, and the wind carried upon it the smell of ice. The ship tipped dangerously as they turned and followed the coastline to the east.
“We call that the Sea of Trolls,” said Olaf.
“They live out there?” said Jack.
“They came from there. Now they live in the high mountains where the snow never melts.”
“I didn’t know Jotuns knew how to make boats.” Jack thought of them as huge and clumsy. They were supposed to be—or perhaps were hoped to be—stupid.
“They walked,” Olaf said.
“On the water?” Jack was appalled. Father said only very pure monks could do that. There had been one on the Holy Isle, though he’d given up the practice to avoid the sin of pride. It was shocking to think a dirty troll had the same power.
“Not on water. Ice. Long ago this sea was frozen,” said Olaf. “No human ever saw it so, but the Jotuns have been here much longer. Their old home lay in the Utter North near a mountain that belched fire.”
“You’re joking,” said Jack.
“Such things exist. Rune saw one in Italia. He said a dragon lived inside it. Anyhow, the trolls’ mountain belched so much fire that it split in two, and their land sank beneath the sea. The Jotuns had to run away across the ice.”
“Maybe they lied about the whole thing,” said Jack, who couldn’t believe the rolling, endless sea to the north had ever been frozen.
“Trolls don’t lie,” Olaf said simply.
“They kill people and eat them, but they’re too virtuous to bend the truth?”
> “What I mean is, they can’t lie. They don’t talk as we do, though some have learned our speech. They think at you.”
And Jack remembered something the Bard had said long ago about trolls: They can creep inside your mind and know what you’re thinking. They know when and where you’re going to strike before you do it. Only a very special kind of warrior can overcome them. “They get inside your mind,” Jack said.
“That’s it!” said Olaf. “They’re impossible to ambush because they know what you’re up to. At the same time they can’t trick you. They can’t think lies at you.”
Jack considered this as he clung to the railing. The ship rolled in the pale green sea, and poor Cloud Mane, who was tethered to the mast, kept slipping and sliding. The cliffs to their right were topped with massive trees. Clouds of seabirds wheeled above foaming rivers that tore down the mountain-sides. “How can you fight an enemy who knows your every move?” Jack wondered.
“Ah! That’s where berserkers come in,” Olaf said. “ We never know what we’re going to do when the fit is on us. We can’t even remember what we’ve done. Jotuns can’t read our minds because we don’t have any!”
So that’s the special kind of warrior the Bard meant, Jack thought. He glanced at Olaf, who was standing tall and proud at the helm. The wind blew back the giant’s white beard and ruffled his bushy eyebrow. Olaf looked as eager as a child at a Yuletide party. His face was rosy with cold, and his eyes were bright blue and excited.
It was hard to hate Olaf when he was like this. It was hard to remember how he killed monks and slaughtered entire villages down to the cows and horses. And perhaps that was because he genuinely didn’t remember what he’d done. There was Good Olaf, who carved toys for Lucy, and Bad Olaf, who sat panting on the ridge overlooking Gizur’s village.
What Jack had to keep in mind, though, was that both of them were supremely dangerous.
“Without berserkers, humans would never have survived here,” said the giant. “Do you know what the trolls used to call us? ‘Two-legged deer.’ ‘Jotun snacks’ was another term. The first humans were hunted like livestock. The skinny ones were fattened up in pens.”
Jack shivered. “Do trolls still, um, do that?”
“It’s more of a sport now. They know we’re people and not animals. A young troll can’t have his browridge tattooed until he brings down his first human. He’s still allowed to eat the trophy. Oh, look! There’s one of the vessels from our battle group.”
Olaf pointed at a raiding ship that had just darted out of a fjord. The three ships of Olaf’s group had become separated during the long sea voyage. “I’ll bet Egil Long-Spear thinks we’re enemies and is coming out for battle,” Olaf said, naming the captain of the other ship. “Is his face going to be red when he realizes his mistake!”
But Egil’s face was more a chalky white when he recognized the berserkers. He bawled apologies across the water. “You’ll pay for this with a skin of wine!” Olaf roared back. Good Olaf was in control at the moment, and Egil, fingering the charm around his neck, gratefully promised the giant a wineskin.
The two ships sailed on together. Of the third there was no trace. Egil shouted that he thought it had gone down in a storm. No one, at least among the berserkers, seemed depressed about that. Thorgil said the men had been lucky because now they were feasting in the halls of Aegir and Ran. “I’d rather go to Valhalla, though,” she said. “It’s much more glorious.”
I wish you were there already, thought Jack. She was going to give Lucy to Frith, rider of Nightmares. Jack remembered the being who had passed over the Bard’s house. It had ridden a horse draped in shrouds of icicles that broke off and clattered into the room. The rider had been even darker than the sky, so black that it sucked the light out of the stars. Its thorny legs had clasped the belly of the horse, drawing white, oozing blood that was more like pus than anything.
Jack felt dizzy with fear. He understood it wasn’t actually the queen riding the Nightmare, but her spirit. If that spirit, weakened as it was then from being cast across the sea, was that terrifying, what would it be like up close? Jack felt the rune of protection about his neck. It radiated warmth like a small sun clasped to his chest.
Should he give the rune to Lucy? She’d need it more than he, if she fell into Frith’s hands. Once given, it was gone forever. He could not take it back. Jack watched Lucy, who was playing peekaboo with Eric Pretty-Face. The grim warrior covered his ruined face with hands that resembled slabs of bacon. “Peekaboo!” shrieked Lucy when he uncovered his eyes. “HAW! HAW! HAW!” rumbled Eric Pretty-Face. It was far too babyish a game for her, but Jack realized it was perfect for the slow-witted Northman.
Lucy was simply too little to understand the importance of the rune. The only thing that would interest her was the bright gold, and that would only be visible while Jack transferred the rune to her neck.
“What do you keep clutching?” came Thorgil’s voice.
Jack dropped his hand at once.
“You’re hiding something there. Give it to me!” She snatched at his throat, and Jack kicked her. Thorgil immediately fell on him, screaming and pounding him with her fists.
Jack tried to defend himself, but he was no match for the shield maiden. Not only was she better trained, she threw herself into battle with complete abandon. Jack found himself on the deck, his ears ringing and blood pouring from his nose. She put her knee on his chest and snatched again at his throat.
“Aaaaiii!” Thorgil shrieked, falling back. “He burned me! He burned me!” By this time Olaf had arrived. He looked at Jack’s bleeding nose and Thorgil’s agonized face. She held up her hand, showing a raw square of charred flesh. “Throw him overboard!” she screamed.
“Seems to me you got as good as you gave,” remarked Olaf.
“He used witchcraft! He’s unnatural!”
“I’ve told you a dozen times not to fight with my thrall,” said the giant. “For this you will be punished. You will not be allowed at the high table at our welcome-home feast. You will sit by the door with the better-class thralls.”
“That’s so unfair! I hate you! I’ll kill you!” wept Thorgil.
“Keep that up and you can eat with the hogs,” Olaf said. “If the lad used a little magic to defend himself, well, that’s what skalds do. Now go to the stern and stay there until we’ve got into port.”
Jack stuck his tongue out at her as she stumbled, weeping noisily, to the stern.
“You”—Olaf’s big hand yanked him up—“can stop baiting her. I’ll have order on this ship or you’ll both be picking your teeth off the deck.” He carried the boy to the mast and tied him by the neck next to Cloud Mane.
For the rest of that day Jack sat glumly with a rope around his neck. He wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve and felt his body for bruises. One of his teeth was loose. Lucy wasn’t allowed to talk to him.
Being punished was nothing new in Jack’s life. Being tethered like a horse was. He felt the shame of it deeply. “It’s all right for you,” Jack told Cloud Mane. “You aren’t smart enough to feel insulted. You think everything’s fine as long as you get your oats.”
Cloud Mane gazed at Jack with dark eyes. He twitched his nostrils as though he smelled something bad.
“None of us have had baths, so don’t take it out on me,” grumbled Jack as the ship sailed east along the coast.
Chapter Nineteen
Homecoming
The next morning they met the first evidence that they were close to King Ivar’s country. A fat, heavy-bodied ship hailed Olaf and Egil as it passed. Jack, who had been released from the mast, leaned over the side to watch. The ship was piled high with dried fish. The men who rowed it, while sturdy, did not have the lean, dangerous look of Olaf’s crew.
“That’s a knorr, ” explained Olaf. “We call it that because the timbers creak the whole time it’s at sea— knorr, knorr, knorr. It takes getting used to, but the men who sail them say it’s music. There’s a tolfaeringr,
or a twelve-oared craft. Ptoo !” Olaf spat over the side in the direction of a small but quite respectable ship. “Fit only for babies, in my opinion. That one’s probably looking for herring. See the nets?”
Jack nodded. “What’s our boat called?”
“A karfi ,” said Olaf, pleased. He patted Jack on the back and woke up all the bruises Thorgil had inflicted. “It’s long, it’s lean, it’s fast. Best of all, it can go up a river and be pulled out on the sand. Perfect for raids.”
“And that ?” Jack pointed at a huge craft making its way along the coast ahead of them. Its sail was bloodred and its oars almost uncountable. They stroked the waves in unison, flashing a bright spray from the water. The sleek lines of the ship were almost unearthly in their perfection. Jack turned to see a look of hopeless longing on Olaf One-Brow’s face. He seemed almost sick.
“That’s a drekar , a dragon ship.”
And Jack saw that the prow was raised in a graceful curve to form a dragon’s head.
“It’s called Strider. It belongs to King Ivar.” All the smiles were gone from Olaf’s face. Jack eased himself away, though he had little room to escape. He was confined to the prow of the ship as Thorgil was to the stern. “I’m not pulling into port behind that drekar !” Olaf shouted. “I will not be overshadowed by that joyriding weakling! I’m the one who’s supposed to come home in glory! I braved the danger, not that—that—”
“Boneless one,” finished Sven, and got a blow for his effort.
“When was the last time he did anything dangerous except run his fingers through Frith’s hair!” The giant stormed down the ship, aiming blows in all directions. Everyone hunched down as far as possible. Finally—his rage somewhat eased—Olaf gave orders to pull into a small bay. Egil Long-Spear’s boat followed.
The giant brooded by a campfire all afternoon. At nightfall Jack, at Rune’s urging, sang the opening of his praise-song:
Listen, ring-bearers, while I speak
Of the glories of battle, of Olaf, most brave.
