Berserker SF Gateway Omnibus: The Shadow of the Wolf, The Bull Chief, The Horned Warrior

by Robert Holdstock

  The great single eye came to regard Harald and immediately the ursine monster opened its hideous, dripping muzzle and growled in pleasure. A wave of stinking breath consumed and choked Harald, the stench of dead flesh, decaying tissue, fecal matter chewed and vomited as the Scavenger of Valhalla nosed and rooted for every last fragment of mortal life among the wasted bones of the dead.

  Scattered light on razor teeth, the flickering of a moist tongue already tasting the juices of the young innocent who would soon be in the beast’s power.

  Harald drew his sword, kissed the rune his father had made upon the hilt, and waved the point towards the towering shape that reached towards him.

  One great fist began to scatter the poles of the wall. The beast’s roar was thunderous against the wind, howling through the night, sending the dark clouds racing to more peaceful skies. For a moment the moon emerged between the grey blanket that obscured the stars, and the full might and fury of the god-beast was shown to Harald as he bravely, foolishly, stood his ground, sword in hand, heart in mouth.

  Monstrous, black as the blackest bear but mud-streaked, blood-streaked, matted fur covered with twigs and dead leaves from its approach through the high forests of the land. The beast’s muzzle seemed to pour the glistening silver juice that told of the madness of the manifest god – like a rabid dog running ravening through the stark cold mountains, seeking its prey, seeking the soft flesh of a mortal in order to pass its madness on.

  For a moment the bear weaved from side to side as its eye regarded Harald and its voice deafened him with its soul-destroying roar; and for a moment there was inner peace, despite the noise and stench, as if man and god were reflecting on the events to come, as if the god were wondering whether it was worth stealing the soul of this insignificant mortal.

  The bear’s muzzle closed, the great paws hesitated in their destroying motions.

  Beyond the palisade, across the blood-stained northlands, a wolf howled, high, loud, frightening. The sound reached Harald’s ears, and the Bear god too turned its head a fraction as the frightening sound of the mountain killer struck a note of discomfort into its being.

  The bear and the wolf, the two great enemies of the north …

  At Ragnarok, when Harald’s pale-featured corpse would join with all the others, with Bjorn and Gotthelm, with Elena and the beastly shapes of the Celtish sword-whores – they would all stand behind the Bear god, the unpredictable and frightening ruler of warrior destiny. They would fight the great grey wolf of the north, and wrestle with the eternal snake of earth and sea, the glistening body and grey fur combining to create a force of evil as strong as if not stronger than the immortal gods. The great test would result either in a desert world of wolf and snake, or a peaceful land where summer reigned always, and the wolf was locked in the dark recesses of the dead from which there would be no release.

  The wolf, now, seemed to Harald a greater friend than he had ever known, despite the fact that it had dogged his trail and haunted him for weeks. Its howl, its cry of anger, was music to his ears, and yet after a few minutes the wolf had gone. Only the shuffling, towering bear remained, crashing through the hold’s defences and reaching a great clawed fist towards the Innocent.

  Sword-like nails stabbed at him, and he struck at them with his singing life-taker, deflected them, strove to preserve his life for a few more seconds. But the stench of the beast’s breath was driving him to unconsciousness, and the power of the beast was so great compared to his own mortal weakness.

  He thrust his life-taker deep into the flesh of the reaching paw, and was rewarded only with the unmistakable sound of a human laugh, reverberating from the widening muzzle of the beast-god. Withdrawing the blade, screaming his own war cry, an insignificant sound against the supernatural thunder, he backed off from the spectre and began to run.

  The bear drove itself through the palisade, sending great wooden spars and splinters scattering across the halls and huts of the settlement.

  His mind on nothing but survival, Harald darted between the buildings, never daring to glance back at the pursuing giant as it stalked and crashed across the settlement.

  And he ran straight into the trap that the Berserks had laid for him.

  From darkness he emerged into the sudden brilliance of a torch waved above him. He stopped, crouched and ready to fight, and the sword was struck from his hand by a blow from behind.

  He whirled, whirled again, round and round, dancing like the dead had danced to the cruel instructions of the Valkyries. The Berserks were all around him, closing in, huge and foul-smelling beast-men, their ursine muzzles open in almost human grins, their hands clutching blood-encrusted blades, still sharp, still well able to take his life as swiftly or as agonisingly as the whim of the killer demanded.

  The tallest of them all, Beartooth himself, laughed loudly as he saw that Harald at last realised the hopelessness of his position.

  ‘As you burned the head of our brother, so we shall burn yours whilst you still live … but not yet, not for a long while. First Odin has a joke to play, a mighty whim to act out. Odin! Show! Fetch us to your great hall!’

  As this final shout carried away into the sky, so the Berserks began to laugh, and the laughter was neither human nor animal, but something in between, a humourless growling, a stretching of jaws and a shrieking of amusement that made Harald fear not only for his life, but for his afterlife, and the life after that …

  Above them, half obscured by smoke and darkness, the single glowing eye of the Bear god announced the towering presence of that vile beast, the terrible manifestation of Odin himself, now content to watch the proceedings.

  Somewhere a woman screamed, her cry of panic, her desperate shout for help, striking cold into every fibre of Harald’s being. He recognised Elena’s voice, realised that two of the Berserks were no longer in the enclosing circle.

  Before he could cry her name a great raven fell out of the night, wings beating the air as it circled above the group, beak open and emitting a shrill and angry cry. The Bear god transformed into the towering shape of a man, dark-robed, wearing a broad-rimmed hat from beneath which a single eye in a richly bearded face regarded Harald with disgust.

  ‘Savage him,’ said the god, the words falling on Harald’s ears like the rumbling chaos of an avalanche. ‘Then follow.’

  And with that the apparition reached arms into the air and streamed upwards into the clouds, vanishing swiftly from sight.

  Helpless, struck paralysed and dumb by forces he would never understand, Harald watched – tried to scream – as Beartooth came forward and opened his mouth, gripped Harald’s throat in his razor teeth and began to bite …

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The confusion never ceased.

  From the roaring of the wind as Odin shrieked back through the stormy realm of Thor, Harald found himself transported to the darkness of death or unconsciousness and from there, mind still echoing to the cries of the dead, he emerged into a vast hall. Here the only sound was the rhythmic and haunting chant of a thousand warriors, all beating sword against shield and crying their war cries, the eternal invocation of their master, the One-eyed demon who had assumed such importance in the realm of the gods by virtue of his rune-gifts.

  Light reflected sharply, blindingly, from a thousand shining points. A fire burned high and fierce, its sound lost beneath the echoing chanting of the warriors whom Harald still could not see.

  Gradually he came to his senses, realised where he was, how he was secured.

  On his back, stretched and pinioned to a hard oak table, his body naked, his skin aware of the breeze and the cold touch of metal braces that held his arms motionless above his head and his legs spreadeagled and twisted painfully.

  The sparkling light was the reflection of the blazing fire from the thousands of spears that formed the roof of this vast and hallowed hall.

  Valhalla! Slainhall! The abode of the warriors who had pleased Odin, even though they had fallen in battle … sk
ulls split, arms hacked, blood draining from severed hearts.

  They had pleased by their fury, by their vigour, by their undaunted cries of war and anger as they had ploughed a blade path through the overwhelming ranks of lesser warriors of lesser nations.

  Now they were gathered, wining and debauching in true warrior fashion, conserving their weapons’ strength for that last great war, yet to be fought. For to those in Slainhall, Ragnarok, the final duel of the gods and the animal forces opposed to them, was still in that dark abyss of time not yet reached, not yet divined.

  As Harald strained to see around him, stretching his neck to peer towards his feet where the great hall stretched away from him, so the oak table pivoted and he found himself rising, able to see the massed ranks of the dead.

  The sight chilled his heart, brought dryness to his mouth and a thundering of blood to his ears.

  In black, robes and metal shining in that absolute blackness of the damned, the warriors were watching him. Their faces were death masks, grinning skulls that writhed despite their bony form as the grinning jaws parted to emit shrill and angry cries of death and war.

  Swords, black-bladed, shining, beat against their shields, a dull thunder that so recently in his past Harald himself had added to with his own fierce thrumming, inspiring the growth of fear in the red-haired Celts who had watched the close-knit ranks of the sea-raiders bearing down upon them.

  Harald screamed, his voice lost against the tide of chanting. He strained against his bonds, feeling more than vulnerable, and cold, bitterly cold, despite the blazing fire whose warmth seemed to reach everywhere except to his own frail and mortal form.

  Beartooth appeared as if from nowhere, walking into the hall followed by his five brother Berserks. They walked down the aisle between the massed ranks of the dead, and gradually the sound of thunderous chanting died away, the death’s heads turning to watch the grim procession as it walked towards the great seat at the far end of the hall. Carved from the stump of a giant oak, set between two richly decorated pillars, each a living ash tree, twisted and thick, probing out through the spear roof and into the vast eternity beyond, this was the throne of Odin himself. Harald found his whole body tensing as he thought of that cruel and untrustworthy demon. How might he manifest himself again, and what whim might he act out?

  ‘Odin! Show!’ cried Beartooth, and in the suddenly silent Slainhall his voice was a startling sound. The six Berserks thundered their spears on the floor of the hall, and a few seconds later the fluttering of wings and the sudden cool gusting of some otherworldly wind caused heads to turn up to the high ceiling.

  The fire dulled a moment, the flames shrinking and seeming to struggle to maintain themselves, but the effect passed.

  With a sound like bats, something, some several things, flittered among the dark rafters at the distant end of the hall, behind the great throne and its tree poles.

  The gathered warriors shuffled and crouched, sombre, black shapes with metal helms glowing dully in the flickering fire light.

  Harald caught brief glimpses of the armoured Valkyries, slender female shapes, slit eyes and grinning mouth just visible among the waving tangles of rich dark hair. They remained in the shadows, but from among them flew the two great ravens, one of which Harald had seen a few minutes before in that other place that had once been his home.

  The ravens settled upon the arms of the throne, cocked their heads and regarded Harald sideways, their beaks tight shut; they had nothing to say.

  And then Odin again appeared. Having once come as a bear, transforming into the caped giant, this time he came as a snorting, stamping bull a huge beast, twice the height of a man, black-skinned with golden eyes and wide horns that almost reached the width of the great aisle where the six Berserks cowered as they confronted their master.

  They scattered as the giant bull suddenly ran among them, tossing its head, roaring loudly and breathing dark fumes and foul smells. It raced towards Harald and, a moment before it would have speared him with its horn, it stopped and shook its head, staring at the petrified youngster who strained against his bonds as escape seemed the only way to avoid a disembowelling.

  From the bull’s throat there came a loud and human laugh. It mocked Harald for long minutes and the entire gathering in Slainhall, the Berserks included, joined in the laughter until Harald’s face burned red with anger, and his ears no longer heard the mocking, but presented the noise as a single scream and he screamed himself to hide the terrible sound.

  As fast as it had appeared, the bull disappeared. The Berserks looked around, puzzled that their master should go again; but Odin was not gone. Using the magic he had at his command, he had darted out of sight to the throne. He sat there, his great bull head cocked on one side, but his body was now that of a richly muscled man, naked, bronzed, his thick member fully erect and held almost arrogantly in one of his fists.

  The bull laughed.

  ‘Frey’s shaft but I like Berserks!’ came the growling voice of the demon god, a voice filled with a texture of mockery. ‘Their stupidity almost matches Thor’s, the great hammer-swinging oaf.’

  The Berserks stood their ground, unsure but too much in awe of their master to say or do anything against this jibe.

  The bull laughed again, flicked its huge member towards the cowering warriors. ‘Frey’s pole feeds the fields; his seed spurts across the furrowed ground. A foolish habit. My seed sparks war, grows into warriors. Warrior blood is the seed of Odin. I like to see it flow, ejaculating from the severed necks of lusty drengs.’

  No one could think of any reply to this indulgent statement, so they all kept silent, glancing uneasily at each other. The bull turned to look at the gathered ranks of his favourite warriors, then again regarded the Berserks, and his gaze wandered beyond them to Harald.

  ‘Is this skinny dealer-in-mercy here to plead for a place in Slainhall?’ The god laughed. ‘He’s still sticky from the womb.’

  ‘We want him,’ said Beartooth loudly. ‘We ask you to give him to us for just a year – four seasons, long enough for him to learn the frenzy of death and then to die in a frenzy himself. He killed our brother, roasted his head, cursed us all. A year, we ask, to pay him back.’

  Odin laughed loudly. ‘A year, a million years. Take him back to his pitiful home and make me a sacrifice. If the sacrifice is good, then you can have him for a thousand years and nothing will release him from the Berserker curse. If the sacrifice is feeble, as it probably will be, you trout-brains, then I shall fry you all where you stand. I tire of you, and of this feeble youth. It’s time for some real fun!’

  The fire went out; the host of the dead froze and faded, becoming shadows, then not even that, just blurs at the edge of vision.

  Darkness enveloped the Hall of the Slain, and after a moment Harald felt himself rising, lifted by some motive force beyond his understanding.

  So frightening was the sensation of rising as if by magic (and surely this was how he was elevated, by the magic of one of Odin’s spells) that Harald closed his eyes tightly and swallowed his gorge which threatened to rise and reduce him to a retching misery.

  The pressure of the bonds across his wrists and ankles was gone, and yet he could not move his limbs. Puzzled by this, he opened his eyes.

  Yellowness was all around, flowing, waving yellowness, and when he looked carefully at this strange environment he realised what it was. Looking up he saw the source of the net of silken hair, hair that contained him, bound him softly yet firmly, formed the sack in which he floated, and was pulled towards the mortal world of Urlsgarde.

  She was naked, floating serenely above him, rising through the deep well from underworld to overworld, slowly turning as she rose, her hair flowing in a wide and complex spiral, and since Harald was entwined within that hair he too turned as he rose, swinging around the walls of the deep chasm through which the bizarre duo travelled.

  A Norn, he realised. A giant girl, gentle now, but liable to angry action if the moo
d took her. She was young, and yet her body showed the signs of her service in the underworld. Huge, pendulous breasts swung as her body moved. Her thighs, like smooth trunks, tensed and relaxed as if she rode some invisible lover towards an unfelt ecstasy.

  As Harald’s gaze lingered on the carrier, so the Norn looked down towards him, great waves running through the silken hair, setting Harald spinning violently as the turbulence reached him.

  Her eyes were as green as a Celtish whore’s, her lips full and moist and almost as wide as her face, so that when they parted in a brief and friendly smile her whole head seemed to split, light flashing on her jewelled and pointed teeth. Harald called her a greeting, but the Norn just laughed and looked away. Ripples ran through her hair and her mountainous breasts swung this way, then that, tantalising the young Viking to whom they represented the ultimate in motherhood and sexuality, two heady subjects that his warrior’s mind had scarcely ever dealt upon but which were never far below the gore-stained surface of his brain.

  As Harald gazed upwards, fascinated by the monstrous shape above him, lingering somewhere between desire and abhorrence as he contemplated the deep cleft of her buttocks and the dense mat of red hair that covered the base of her stomach, so he realised that high above was the settlement at Urlsgarde.

  They were rising towards it, but as he recognised the palisaded town so his stomach turned over, his senses swivelled and acute nausea racked him for a moment as he realised that they were not rising, but were in fact falling.

  Immediately the ground began to rush to meet him, the air whistling past his face. His limbs – released from their bonds – thrashed, seeking for some hold, some branch with which to break his desperate plummet towards the earth.

  The Norn was still there, but now she slowed and her hair flowed out in a great fan behind Harald. At once she was left far behind, a giant shape, shrinking from vision until – for a brief moment – she seemed to be a naked and slender girl, dancing and weaving through the clouds, watching Harald as he tumbled, uncontrollably towards the dark village below.