Berserker Series, Book 1

by Emmy Laybourne

  It was cold. Someone had laid an old horse blanket over him. Daisy had been pressed against his feet, as was her custom, probably to help keep him warm.

  “All right, girl, I’m alive,” he said. She made a joyful whimper. Owen pushed her off with his arm, which gave him a sharp pain in the side. He felt like he’d been caught on the cattle hoof side of a stampede.

  Passersby clucked and shook their heads.

  Owen prodded his teeth with his tongue. They seemed to be intact, though the inside of his cheek was all cut up. Tenderly, he touched his face.

  With a stiff neck, Owen looked around for his hat and saw it over on the walkway at the other side of the doorway, where his friend Hoakes was laid out. Owen’s hat was covering Hoakes’s face.

  Owen looked up and squinted, trying to see what building they were leaned up against. Daisy’s tail thumped against the wooden boards of the walkway.

  A man opened the door. He wore a fine black suit, spectacles, and had a neat, trimmed beard.

  “Come in when you’re up. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do for you. And if you’d be so kind to bring in my blankets.”

  Owen saw now that the sign above the door was of a winged staff with two snakes curling up around it—it was a doctor’s office.

  “Shhh,” said Hoakes from under Owen’s hat. The doctor shook his head and closed the door.

  “Hoakes,” Owen said. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  “I might be,” Hoakes answered. “Daisy, go fetch us some water.”

  Daisy perked up her ears. She looked over to Hoakes and back to her master.

  “Why are we sleeping on the street?” Owen croaked.

  “I dragged you over here last night, you ingrate.” Hoakes lifted the hat brim and glanced at Owen. “Figured I ought to get you out of Whistler’s way. Then I got awful tired and it seemed like a good place to rest and here we are.”

  Owen sat up slowly. The street was spinning in a disquieting way. One of his teeth felt loose in the socket, but at least it was still in place. Owen spat out a mouthful of foul rust-colored saliva.

  “Say, I hope you weren’t depending on your good looks to get a winter gig, son. ’Cause you look a fright,” Hoakes offered.

  Owen suddenly felt for his pay. There was a pocket sewn inside his vest, especially made to keep money close.

  It was gone. Every cent of the thirty dollars he’d earned was gone, along with the thirteen dollars he had saved doing odd jobs back home.

  He cussed.

  “What is it?” Hoakes said, sitting up with a grimace.

  Owen couldn’t answer for a moment, he was so angry. Forty-three dollars! That was to be his seed money! All gone. And he couldn’t even go after Mandry or Whistler for it. He’d been lying, passed out, on the public walkway all night and half the morning. Anyone could have taken it.

  Owen cussed again. A stringy woman carrying two live chickens head down in each hand stopped and cocked her head to listen.

  “Listen to you, carrying on! If you was my own, I’d thrash you good!” she said, with a brittle southern accent. “Someone oughta call the sheriff on you. Laying about in the street, sleeping off a drunk. This is a decent town we got here. Helena’s gonna be the state capital, once we get ratified!”

  “I’ve been robbed,” Owen said. His voice came out with a crack in it, and even to his own ears, he sounded foolish and younger than he wanted to be.

  “Well, if I were you, I’d count that as a lesson learned!” She turned on her heel and walked away.

  Owen swallowed. He’d never felt such anger and despair. Daisy licked at his face, but he pushed her away.

  “I’m sorry about your money, Owen,” Hoakes said. “You should go see the sheriff. He might be able to help.”

  Owen shook his head.

  “Look, I can stake you five dollars out of my pay,” Hoakes said.

  “No.” Owen wouldn’t take his money.

  “Consider it a loan.”

  “No,” Owen said. He didn’t want to look at Hoakes. He didn’t want to see the pity in his eyes. “I don’t intend to go into debt one month after I leave home.”

  “What’ll you do?”

  “I’ll find work that comes with room and board for the winter. Get signed up on a drive come spring.” He struggled to his feet. The whole street swam.

  “How’re your ribs? Anything feel broke?” Hoakes held out Owen’s hat, and Owen took it.

  “Nope. Just sore, is all.”

  “Aw, take the five bucks, kid. You don’t have to pay me back. You might have a hard time getting work, your face all smashed up.”

  “I’m not taking charity,” Owen said. “Thanks just the same.”

  “Well, stop and think for a minute. Why don’t you come with me to Great Falls? My sister’s got a big place and two little’uns. I bet she could use us both.”

  “Thank you, Hoakes, but no. I’ll make my own way.”

  Owen swayed on his feet.

  Now, he knew he ought to fold the blanket and return it to the doctor, but more than that he wanted to get out of Hoakes’s sight as fast as he could. He was going to vomit, and he didn’t want Hoakes to feel any worse for him than he already did. Kicking the blanket aside, Owen walked stiffly away, his hat clutched in his left hand, Daisy padding faithfully on his right.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The SS Helvetia accommodated seventy-two first class passengers and twelve hundred in steerage. It had both sails and steam engines and could cut across the ocean at a top speed of ten knots. The journey from Liverpool to New York, which would take up to a month on a sailing vessel, took merely ten to twelve days now.

  Hanne walked the deck, where so many languages from so many countries were spoken at the same time that it sounded more like chickens squawking than human conversation. From the hatware alone one could tell that many European nations were represented on board. Some ladies wore woolen wraps, like hers; others had frilly bonnets or silken caps perched on their heads, held on with hatpins. Some men had on funny fur caps.

  Sissel was sick, constantly bringing up the biscuits and gruel Hanne forced her to eat. Hers was not the only vomit to streak the sleek sides of the steamship. She clung to Hanne, moaning and complaining almost all the time. Hanne accepted it. It was fair Sissel should complain and curse her. After all, Hanne was the cause of all their misfortune.

  Only Stieg and Knut weren’t suffering at all. They were delighted, gleeful, even. This bothered Hanne. She felt somehow that they should be miserable and feel terribly ashamed about their sister’s crimes, or worried about the future. But they were happy at sea.

  Each day, Stieg taught English in a small space at the back of the deck. It was for the children, but more and more adults gathered to listen as the days passed. Most were Norwegians and Swedes, and some were Germans, too. The ship also held many English. They had no need for Stieg’s lessons, of course. Some bad boys came to tease the first day, but Knut had looked their way and they’d scrambled off.

  During the lessons, Hanne and Sissel sat leaning against the railing, both wan and listless for their private reasons, while Stieg entertained and educated.

  Stieg lectured on common verbs and nouns, drilling the children. But the favorite moments were the skits he enacted with members of the crowd. One morning Stieg borrowed Hanne’s wrap and tied it over the head of a bright young man from Oslo, under his chin, like an old peasant.

  “Good afternoon, miss,” Stieg said in English, bowing to the boy. Everyone giggled.

  “Gut afternoon, sir,” the boy replied.

  “Did you go to the market today?”

  “Ya.”

  “Yes,” Stieg corrected. “And what did you buy?”

  “Er … brød.”

  “Ah! Bread! Yum!” Laughs from the deck. “Brød. Bread.” The children watched in delight, the wind toying with the wisps of their hair. The boys held their caps in their little hands.

  “What else?”
/>   “Bread?”

  “Yes. We know of the bread. What else did you buy? Apples?”

  “Ya. Yes, apples.” The boy nodded, grinning.

  “And sugar? Butter? Then we can make some cookies for Christmas. Come, children, pick up your bowl and your spoon.”

  Now Stieg would lead them in a pantomime, making cookies.

  Hanne watched him instructing these children of different countries. Everyone knew how to make cookies, of course. Boy or girl, they had all helped their mothers with baking. And now they learned the English words for stir, spoon, bowl, peel, chop.

  With every span of the ship they put between them and the shore, Stieg seemed to grow more confident. It should have made her happy. Her brother was a gifted teacher. He would do so well in America. But even seeing her brother command the attention of a whole flock of children with their parents gathered behind them could not lighten her heart.

  Before killing the men, she had used her Nytte to butcher livestock. She had had to trigger her Nytte by putting herself or one of her siblings in danger, but still, she thought of it as a tool, something she could choose to bring to hand.

  Now she saw how naive she had been. The quicksilver power to kill was waiting in her body at all times, even when she slept. She was like a drawn bow, with a deadly arrow quivering, singing to be set free.

  She had thought herself to be a good girl. She had been good! But that was before the Nytte came.

  Her back to the rails and her face in the wind, Hanne remembered how she used to race home from school, going directly to her father’s workshop where he would show her the day’s work. He had taught her his craft, so sure was he that she would be a Shipwright, like him. He said it didn’t matter that Hanne was a girl. And though he had lost digits, and was continuing to lose them, he had faith Hanne would carry on his work. Once her Nytte came into bloom, she’d be as good with the wood as he was. Her nimble, capable fingers would articulate his designs. Together, they would build ships known around the world.

  And then she had come of age. Their mother had explained to Hanne how to change the cloths to catch her monthly bleeding. Privately, Sissel had asked Hanne if it hurt. Did she mind terribly, now that she could no longer run and play with the boys at recess, but must stay inside with the older girls?

  Hanne had not minded at all. She was happy to become a young woman. She knew it meant that if she had a Nytte, it would soon reveal itself.

  Then their neighbor Johan’s dog had attacked them.

  It was a nasty dog, a yellow mongrel with black chops. Johan kept him tied up, and whenever the children passed his house, the dog barked and snarled, foam flying from his muzzle.

  Hanne, Stieg, and Sissel were coming home from school. Knut was at home, helping their mother with the farmwork. He was not good at school; he was confused by sums and writing. So he stayed home, and their mother taught him how to work a farm.

  Hanne had been walking ahead with Stieg, their little sister trailing behind. Sissel was a pest, always whining and weak. No fun at all. Hanne and Stieg were talking about a lesson from school, about mathematics—was it preferable to do the math in your head or to do it on a slate, where you could check the work? They were ignoring their sister, and she had stopped to cry. Standing there bawling in the middle of the lane that led through the meadow to town.

  Suddenly Hanne’s gut went cold. She was running before her mind could even register that Sissel’s whining had turned to SCREAMING.

  Johan’s vicious yellow dog was free, had gnawed through the rope. Its massive jaws were sunk into Sissel’s leg, and it was dragging her into the woods. Hanne’s knuckles brushed against the ground seeking a weapon. Her hand selected the sharpest stick. A stout stick. It had nearly glowed, calling to her.

  She was running, full speed, and then her knee dropped onto the dog’s neck. It let go of Sissel.

  Hanne drove the stick into the dog’s eye. Through the bone and out the other socket. She pinned the hound to the ground with that stick.

  The dog howled. Its limbs scrambled in vain.

  Stieg only then arrived, skidding to a stop in the fir needles. Sissel was sobbing, blood pouring from her torn calf, dirt and spittle muddying the wound. Stieg had moved into action, tearing off his jacket and wrapping it around Sissel’s leg.

  “Hanne? Are you all right?” he had asked.

  Hanne was still on top of the dog, her arm pushing down though the dog was dead. She trembled, her body vibrating with adrenaline. The energy that had possessed her drained away as the blood of the dog coursed into the dirt. Her hand finally released the stick.

  “Come, Hanne, we must get Sissel home,” Stieg said. Sissel was sobbing. She screamed as Stieg lifted her. “Hanne! Come!”

  But Hanne stayed. It took a while for her to return to herself. A fierce hunger overtook her, and then her belly demanded she get home.

  She walked and then she ran. She ran because she was so hungry she had the desire to lick the dog blood off her hands.

  When Hanne arrived home, breathless, Sissel was lying on the kitchen table, weeping, curled on her side. Water was set to boil on the stove, and their mother had laid out rolls of bandages along with the herbal salve she kept in the root cellar.

  “Mama, I’m so hungry,” Hanne had said.

  Hanne could still see their mother’s expression. Her thin face taking in the sight of Hanne standing there in the door, her hands covered with blood. Blood on her school smock. Their mother’s eyes filled with tears, and the tears spilled over, streaming down her face.

  Hanne crossed to the cabinet and seized the loaf of new bread, cooling inside. She sunk her teeth into the thick crust.

  Stieg and Knut were off to the side, watching. They had clearly been shooed away by their mother. Hanne saw a sad understanding in Stieg’s eyes. Knut only looked confused, as if he might cry.

  Suddenly their mother picked up the butter bell and threw it at Hanne. It crashed into the cabinet door, the pottery shattering. Stieg, Knut, Hanne, Sissel—each child was astonished.

  “This I cannot bear!” their mother had screamed. “No!”

  Then she returned to binding Sissel’s wound.

  “First your father’s fingers rot away. Then Stieg becomes a Storm-Rend, and I learn of this Nytte, this disease that haunts my family line.”

  She wrapped the bandages too tight and made Sissel cry harder.

  “And now, Hanne, your Nytte reveals itself, and you … you are a—” She choked on the word. Couldn’t say Berserker. “You are a killer!”

  Hanne sank to the floor. Not in shame. The shame would come later. She knelt down for the butter, took it in her hand, and ate it, spitting out slivers of pottery.

  “God help me, what will become of my sweet Knut and you, dear Sissel. Oh dear God, what will become of us!”

  And their stoic, even-tempered mother put her head down onto her youngest child’s thin chest and wept.

  Amund’s reaction had been different. He had heard the news, then inspected Sissel’s bandaged leg, then walked out of the house to go get drunk. He never spoke of his disappointment to Hanne, but when she came shyly to the door of his workshop a few days later, he did not invite her in, only asked her to fetch him some ale from the house.

  Their mother left not a month later. She had said she was going to visit her cousin in Bergen, but she had packed like she was going away forever.

  When she said good-bye, she hugged Knut the longest. Big, shy Knut had always been her favorite. Hanne barely got a squeeze. Her mother could not stand to look at her, not even when it was her last look.

  Hanne had to wonder, who would love you if your own mother could not?

  * * *

  HANNE SAT ON the deck, watching Stieg entertain his students. He was such a good teacher.

  Even after she learned she was cursed to be a Berserker, Hanne couldn’t resist Stieg’s lessons. The English he studied during the long winters called to her. He had read to Sissel and s
tudied aloud, knowing the English was seeping into Hanne’s mind. She couldn’t help but pick up the strange and wonderful words.

  She resented it then, and she still resented it. Even now, with the ship lumbering up and down, plowing through the waves toward God only knew what in America, Stieg was cheerful and beckoning to her. Even now, with her a killer of men, Stieg winked and directed his jokes to her. He still wanted her to be alive, and it rankled Hanne, because the only way she had survived her mother’s departure and their father’s rapid descent into cruelty and drunkenness was to go dead at the heart.

  “Children, share your cookies. Yes, put one on a plate. Now go run and give it to your mother or your father. Then come back in an hour, and we’ll begin the afternoon lesson!”

  Stieg held out his own imaginary plate of whatever he had conjured, sirup-snappers or krumkakker, over the heads of his small swarming charges to Hanne.

  Hanne stood abruptly and turned away. She pushed through the crowd that had gathered around her brother and made her way to the back of the ship.

  As she watched the water churning, she thought of what it would be like to throw herself overboard, to escape from the guilt that weighed her heart down so relentlessly. Exchange her shame for a body of water soaking her skirts, dragging her down to perdition.

  “You must find a way to forgive yourself,” Stieg said, appearing at her elbow. It was as if he could read her thoughts from the way she looked at the dark, roiling wake with longing.

  Hanne made a low, scoffing sound. “I cannot.”

  “If you can’t do it for yourself, for your own happiness, then you must do it for us.”

  “You don’t understand—” she began.

  “The news of what happened at home will spread. They will look for us. They may even track us to America. We are in danger.

  “You got us into this situation, Hanne. I know you are deeply aware of that, and I know it grieves you. But now I charge you to get over your grief. You must keep us safe. No one can do it the way you can.”

  Hanne tore her gaze away from the water to regard her brother. His brow was furrowed, his blue eyes forceful but not unkind.

  “You have a job now. Get yourself together, and see that you do it.”