03 - The Islands of the Blessed

by Nancy Farmer

  “Them? They were carried out at first light,” one of the men said. “Had a bit too much to drink if you ask me, but didn’t we all?” The other men guffawed.

  “They were drugged! What have you done with them?” cried the boy.

  “We took them back to the village,” said Big Half, who had been drawn by the commotion. “Please don’t cry, little princess. They can visit you after the wedding.”

  “There won’t be any wedding!” shouted Thorgil. “I’m a shield maiden and my kind do not marry. Where’s Adder-Tooth?”

  “He left at first light too,” said the guard. “If you’ll pardon me, little lady, you’re far too cute for a shield maiden.”

  “If I had an axe, I’d bury it in your thick skull!” screamed Thorgil.

  “Feisty little morsel,” the guard said to his pals.

  Jack pulled her away before she resorted to mayhem. “We can’t fight our way out,” he said. “We’ll have to use strategy.”

  “Like Olaf used to do,” said Thorgil, wiping tears of frustration from her eyes. Jack smiled inwardly. Olaf One-Brow’s idea of strategy was to run downhill with an axe, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  “Skakki won’t abandon you,” he said. “Nor any of the others. They’re probably thinking of a battle plan right now.”

  “I know that, but they’re badly outnumbered,” said Thorgil. “Oh, Jack, what are we going to do? Can’t you call up an earthquake or something?”

  Jack wished, not for the first time, that the Bard had taught him useful magic, such as how to knock holes in walls or make everyone go blind. “I’ll think of something. Don’t worry.”

  But the morning passed and he wasn’t able to think of anything. Creating a storm wasn’t any good. Farseeing was useless, and besides, it took concentration. Thorgil kept interrupting him. He tried to cast a sleep-spell over a woman plucking a hen, and she asked him if he was feeling ill.

  Thorgil’s scheme, which she repeated many times, was to kill the guards and make a run for it. There were five gate guards, Jack pointed out, each one weighing twice as much as they did. They would have to use strategy. She called him a weakling.

  At midday they both sat with their legs dangling over the sea cliff. “I’d throw myself off if it weren’t for this wretched rune of protection,” Thorgil said, clutching the invisible pendant at her neck.

  “You’re lucky to have it,” said Jack unsympathetically. He remembered how the talisman had made him feel. No matter how grim things were, it reminded you of how precious life was.

  “Perhaps I could give it away. I think Little Half would like it.” Thorgil was taunting him, one of her favorite activities when she was frustrated. The only person she couldn’t give the rune to was Jack, and he was the only person who really wanted it.

  “The Bard says the rune decides when to go,” Jack said. “It won’t let you do something so totally stupid.”

  The shield maiden grasped the pendant and tried to force it over her head. Her hand opened involuntarily. The rune fell back into place. “I hate you,” she said.

  “I hate you too,” replied Jack. He was thoroughly tired of her insults.

  With a loud cry, Seafarer dropped onto the cliff, scattering the children who were guarding drying fish. The bird immediately fell upon the fish and started stuffing himself. Seafarer! Fly away! cried Thorgil in Bird. Already the warriors were scrambling for bows and arrows.

  Fire! said the albatross, after choking down what he had in his beak. Fire! Fire! An arrow whizzed by. Thorgil shielded the bird with her body.

  Fly! she screamed.

  Fire! shrieked Seafarer, plunging over the edge and swooping away. A flock of seagulls exploded from below and unwittingly formed a barrier between the albatross and his hunters.

  “Don’t be frightened, little lady,” said one of the men. “We’ll protect you from that nasty bird.”

  “I’m not frightened!” yelled Thorgil, but they grabbed her by the arms and dragged her inside, along with Jack.

  Adder-Tooth had returned and was sullenly drinking at a table. “Keep them here where we can watch them,” he ordered. He called for Little Half to bring him more ale.

  The shield maiden fumed and cursed, but it only made the guards laugh. One of them tried to chuck her under the chin. She slapped him, and Adder-Tooth shouted for them to leave her alone.

  “Do you see how women are treated? Do you see?” Thorgil raged when she and Jack had retreated to the center of the hall. “That’s why I will never marry.”

  For someone who wanted a princess, Jack thought, Adder-Tooth hardly looked like an eager bridegroom. The king drank horn after horn of ale. He seemed to have forgotten all about Thorgil’s existence. He certainly did none of the thoughtful things Schlaup did when he was courting Mrs. Tanner. There were no flowers or little treats, though to be honest, Thorgil would only have thrown them in the king’s face. But he should have tried, Jack thought.

  “I have a knife strapped to my leg,” whispered Thorgil. “If Adder-Tooth gets close, I’ll kill him.”

  That was one solution, Jack mused. No bridegroom, no marriage. Then the guards would kill them to avenge their king. Like most of Thorgil’s plans, it had flaws.

  It was clear that Seafarer had been sent with a message, but the bird had been distracted by the fish. Fire, he’d said. Was that a warning? It was impossible to tell. Seafarer’s ability to describe things was limited.

  Or perhaps fire was a command. Calling up fire was the first thing Jack had learned as an apprentice, and he was very good at it. He looked around the hall and noted that the floor was covered from end to end with straw. A mountain of peat blocks leaned against a wall. The roof was made of dry turf.

  What would happen if the hall burned down? Everyone would run outside. Most were outside already, doing chores near the cliff. The rest—and here the plan made sense—would head for the only source of water, the fountain in the courtyard. Not only would fire distract the warriors, it would divide Adder-Tooth’s forces.

  “Stay close to the iron door. Be ready to run,” he murmured to Thorgil. She nodded, instantly alert. She casually drifted toward the door. The guards glanced nervously at Adder-Tooth, not wishing to rouse his anger again. Thorgil sat down just close enough to make them uneasy and far enough away so that it didn’t look as though she was being friendly.

  Jack drifted in the other direction. A warrior barked at him to stay away from the door. He sat down next to the peat pile and closed his eyes. He cast his mind down to search for the sunlight of summers past that had sunk into the earth.

  The ground below resisted at first, but suddenly it gave way to mud and water. Jack found himself floating in a warm sea, an ancient sea. Long ago this rock had been water, and the surprise of it made Jack stop and look around. Sunlight fell into green, murky depths. Strange fish with large heads and scales like leather armor swam around him. Ancient shores appeared and disappeared. A ripple hung frozen in the gloom, and when he put his hand out to touch it, he found it hard as stone.

  He sank down again until light vanished altogether, but he felt the questing life-forms all around him, except that they were not alive. They were the memories of fish. Even here was a host of spirits. They lazily followed Jack, nibbling at his heels.

  And then he felt the familiar fire, like a beating heart. He reached for it. Come to me, he called. Come forth. The fire swept upward and Jack fled before it. The fish swam away with red light flashing on their scales and the sea glowing like a sunset cloud. He reentered his body, dripping with sweat. A flame shot out of the mountain of peat and licked across the ceiling.

  “Bloody Hel!” roared Adder-Tooth. “The peat’s caught fire! Get water! Get rakes! Push that stuff outside!” But the fire was too intense and the guards couldn’t approach it.

  “We must go,” begged Little Half.

  Adder-Tooth knocked him sprawling. “Don’t tell me I have to do anything! I’m a king!” Little Half’s brother ran
to pick him up.

  The fire had by now engulfed the roof and the servants had fled toward the cliff. Next, the warriors bolted. Thorgil tried to reach the iron door, but they grabbed her and ran in the opposite direction. Bits of flaming peat fell all around them.

  “Go to the water! Go to the water!” yelled Jack. The warriors were too panicked to listen. Big Half fled past with Little Half in his arms. By now the floor was aflame and there was no possibility of crossing the hall. Jack gave up and followed them.

  Black smoke billowed into the sky, but the sea breeze fortunately carried it away from the cliff. Women gathered their children into little groups and men waited by the barns to beat out any flames that might reach there. Last of all King Adder-Tooth burst from the hall, his body covered in ashes and his beard smoking. Behind him the roof collapsed.

  The only sounds then were of crying children, bleating animals, and the crackle of flames. The destruction had happened so fast, everyone was too shocked to speak. The fire died down almost as quickly, because anything flammable had gone up like tinder. It was over in only a few terrifying minutes. But the stone walls still radiated so much heat that no one dared approach them. After a while Thorgil said brightly, “Who wants to go to the village?”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  FULL MOON

  “You—! You—!” Adder-Tooth was so enraged, he could hardly get the words out. “You aren’t going anywhere!” He took a deep breath. “Someone is responsible for this! Someone didn’t dry the peat, and it went up like a haystack. Was it you?” He grabbed a terrified servant by the neck and shook him until the man passed out. Adder-Tooth dropped him onto the ground.

  The king raged around the cliff, raining blows on anyone he encountered, even children. “Someone did this, and when I find out who it is, I’m going to feed him to the hogboon.”

  Everyone was silent, and Jack thought the warriors looked slightly ashamed of their leader. It was one thing to lose your temper—Northmen did it all the time—but to blame people for natural catastrophes was foolish. Ships sank in storms, rats ate grain, haystacks burst into flame. These things happened. The warriors were not to know, of course, that this time someone was responsible.

  “It’s fate,” one of the men said.

  The king whirled around and fetched him a blow that knocked out teeth. “How dare you contradict me!” He drew his sword. “Was it you? Have you been plotting against me?” The man had fallen to his knees and his mouth dripped blood. Other warriors pulled him away and several more formed a barrier with their hands on their swords.

  The king suddenly realized he’d gone too far. “Thor’s thunderbolt!” he cried, clutching his head as though struck by a sudden pain. “I was overcome with battle fury. For a moment I saw enemies around me and thought I heard the hoofbeats of Valkyries riding through the sky. Please forgive me! I know you are loyal men.”

  The warriors relaxed their grip on their weapons, for they all understood battle fury. Jack knew it was a favorite Northman excuse for bad behavior, but sometimes the fury was genuine. Some berserkers were born that way and couldn’t help running mad. Jack didn’t think Adder-Tooth was one of them.

  “We can’t stay in this ruin tonight,” the king said. “Gather the livestock and we’ll go to the village.”

  “Is that safe?” one of the men said, keeping distance between himself and Adder-Tooth.

  “The hogboon has never bothered the village,” the king said scornfully, and the man flushed. Adder-Tooth was hinting that the man was a coward. “Personally, I think it is a stupid creature, always returning to the place it fed. I, of course, shall return here after I’ve seen you to safety. This is my hall, burned though it is, and I will not abandon it.” The warriors murmured, but what they said was unclear.

  Everyone began gathering emergency supplies from the barns and kitchen. Sheep were driven out and a few of the chickens were packed in baskets, to be cared for in the village. The rest would have to stay behind. Even the skald was given a sack of oats to carry. By now Little Half had recovered his wits, though the side of his face was turning purple. Big Half squatted beside him and said cheerfully, “You know what, little brother? You look just like I do after a game of Bonk Ball.”

  During the long afternoon the ashes cooled, until the warriors were able to enter the ruined hall and poke around with their spears. “It’s hot, but I think we can get through,” one of them said.

  Another cursed when he tried to open the iron door. “Wrap your hands in cloth before you touch this,” he called.

  Jack saw to his amazement that the stone walls had changed. The sandstone slabs had melted together into one mass, like clay in a potter’s oven. He felt them cautiously and found the surface smooth. What kind of fire had he called up?

  Once the door was opened, groups began to move through. Nightfall was not far away and they had to hurry. They dragged the sheep, bleating and complaining, through the still-smoking embers. With the sinking of the sun, the anger radiating from the outer wall increased, and Jack heard the whisper of fell voices in his ears. A cold wind blew a plume of ash into the late-afternoon sky.

  A group of villagers was waiting outside and rushed to help family members and friends. They had seen the smoke from afar. The rest were at home, arming themselves in case it had been a raid from across the sea. “It was a magic fire,” the skald told his goggle-eyed audience. “I swear I saw a dragon breathe on us and turn the stones to glass. I’ll write a poem about it.”

  Their shadows stretched eastward as they walked through the heather, so that they appeared to be a party of giants going for a stroll. The sheep ran back and forth distractedly as sheep do, and the children ran back and forth to herd them. After a while Jack saw the village. Beyond it, floating on a green sea in the late light, was Skakki’s ship.

  “Skakki may be badly outnumbered,” whispered Thorgil, “but if I were Adder-Tooth, I would not trust the loyalty of some of these men.”

  Jack agreed. Many of them had served Bjorn and no one seemed to have much respect for Adder-Tooth. He wasn’t the kind of man who inspired devotion. Jack had noticed that the king kept a personal guard of twenty men close to him and guessed that these were his original crew. They hung back from the main body of travelers and insisted on keeping Jack and Thorgil with them. “The Bard will have a plan to rescue us,” Jack said quietly to Thorgil. “He always knows what to do.”

  “The hogboon awakes! Run for your lives!” Adder-Tooth suddenly shouted.

  The villagers panicked. Mothers snatched up children, men thrashed the sheep with sticks, the sheep bleated and bounded forward. The warriors ran behind, urging them on.

  Big Half slung Little Half over his shoulder, but the extra weight slowed him down and they were quickly left behind. “You! Come with us!” commanded the king. Big Half reluctantly obeyed.

  What rotten luck, thought Jack. Now we’ll have to spend the night on that wretched cliff. But to his surprise, instead of returning to the ruined hall, the troop turned aside. They went south and followed a faint trail at the bottom of a valley.

  It was that time of evening when everything blurs together in a twilight, and very quickly Jack lost all sense of direction. Round and about they went through a confusing jumble of low hills. The sky was a bright gray and tendrils of mist drifted up from ponds gleaming like mirrors in the dark heather.

  At last they reached a wide bowl in the midst of the hills with a single, solitary bulge rising in the middle. The men were huffing and puffing by now, and they stopped to catch their breath. A sunset glow still shone in the western sky. To the east a glorious full moon was rising. “What are you doing, master?” wailed a voice Jack recognized as Little Half’s. “We must flee to the hall as fast as we can!”

  “Not this time,” Adder-Tooth said. “This time the debt will be paid in full.”

  There was an immediate intake of breath among the men. The light was muted, but Jack was able to make out the shape of the bulge. It
was far more regular than a natural feature and at the top was a solitary standing stone. Jack was willing to bet it had Pictish carvings on it.

  “How will it be paid?” someone said.

  Something struck Jack then: The king had said “paid in full”. Was it possible that Little Half had lied about Adder-Tooth not sacrificing to the hogboon? And that visitors to the king’s hall had conveniently disappeared?

  “I never told you lads the whole story about the man buried in this barrow,” Adder-Tooth said. He sounded completely relaxed, as though he had nothing to worry about from whatever lurked in this hollow. “He was a Pictish king called Nechtan. It was rumored he’d been fed roasted wolf hearts as a child to make him savage. And savage he was,” Adder-Tooth said approvingly. “He made a pact with one of the old gods to sacrifice one of his own sons every ten years in return for long life. Eventually, he slew nine. One was left.

  “Nechtan needed a wife to give him more sons and so, when he was a hundred and fifty years old, he arranged to marry a young princess. But on the wedding day his surviving son let an army of enemies into the hall. They slew Nechtan and carried off the princess. Ever since then his spirit has searched for her. If he accepts Thorgil in her place, he may leave the rest of us alone.”

  “You won’t buy safety with this coward’s trick,” said Thorgil. “My brothers will avenge me!”

  “I thought you wanted a princess for marriage,” objected Little Half.

  “So I do,” Adder-Tooth said with a cold smile, “so I do. But not for me. You were willing enough to help me on other occasions, my treacherous friend—the odd visitor, a runaway slave. Your sleeping potions have been most useful.”

  “Little Half, what have you been doing?” cried Big Half, aghast.

  “Looking after you, you poor, stupid ox,” the dwarf said. “Do you think anyone would have hired you with your pitiful skills? You can’t even catch a ball. I was the one the lords wanted, the intelligent one who came up with entertainments and battle strategies. I served them for whatever purpose they wanted in return for tolerating you.”