Thorfinn and the Witch's Curse

by Jay Veloso Batista

  Looking up and pocketing the blade, Dundle took a careful look at their surroundings and pointed to the left again. Sorven and Finn scrambled to the front. This way wound into the hills, up and down, the wheels crunching icy puddles at the bottom of each rise. The horse huffed puffs of steamy breath. The wind had hung pockets of snow in the crooks of the tree limbs, and snow cascaded from the tree tops at their passing.

  “Not far now,” Dundle leaned close to Cub to avoid a low-slung branch. The unused path, overgrown with brambles, confused the horse—it snorted and stamped and pressed forward through the brush—Cub whistled and clicked his tongue in encouragement.

  Coming over a rise, the lane broke free of the thicket and crossed an open field with a tall mound in its center.

  “Mother would call that an ‘elf dolmen.’’ Cub said. The remains of the path stopped at the bottom of this knoll and Cub brought the fell pony to a stop at its base, the wagon rocking as the gelding stamped its feet and pushed back against its yoke.

  “Tis it,” Dundle pointed up the hillside, his pale face peeking out of his hood. The rough scar on his chin seemed white as the glimpses of snow in the surrounding field.

  ‘What?” Sorven loudly complained. “Where’s the tower? Where’s the cliff? The cliff that it fell down when lighting struck? You know. This can’t be the place….” Finn looked perplexed at the solitary hump, its grassy side windblown and yellowed. Cub tied the reins to the seat and took the hobble from under the bench.

  “We’ll go see,” he said.

  “I tell you, tis the place,” Dundle climbed down from his perch. “Heard it from a monk.”

  Sorven grumbled as he and Finn climbed down from the wagon bed. With horse hobbled, Cub took the lead, circling the mound. Sorven shadowed close behind him, while Dundle held back and Finn trailed them all, checking over his shoulder and watching his brothers run ahead.

  “Look here, these seem to be steps….” Worn steps cut into the sod, overgrown and slippery with icy grass. The four boys scaled the steep hillside, resorting to hands and knees to keep a solid hold, Cub charging up the hillside with Sorven on his heels, Finn creeping carefully behind them and Dundle trailing last. Climbing, they found the grass hid rubbish and stones, the hill scattered with debris, sticks and bits of old wattle and daub siding, rotted and barely held together by muddy mortar. Rattling brown rags of last summer’s leaves, a few thin scrub oaks perched near the top, offering hand holds.

  The chill wind increased as they scrabbled up. Reaching the top, they found a slot carved into the apex of the knoll, as wide as Cub’s arms outstretched and as deep as he was tall. Lined with stacked stones, the groove widened at its end, centered around an old hearth where the stones stood fire blackened and filled with loose leaves and frost wilted bracken. Cub walked around the fire hole, while Dundle hung back with the younger boys. Finn shivered in the wind.

  “I’ve seen these before,’ Cub said. “This is an old Celtic building. They would have built a house over this cut, built a fire down there,” he pointed at the old hearth in the middle of the slotted earthen work. “In winter the fire heats the stones and warms the house above, and in summer it cools and acts as a root cellar.” He scrambled around and up the hill peak.

  “See here,” He indicated a stump protruding from the grass. “This is the end of a supporting beam. There was a building here…,” he bent to examine it. “Look, it’s been burned.” Finn climbed up next to Cub, while Sorven crept slowly to the entrance of stone lined cellar. Dundle, his hood pulled down tight over his head and his hands tucked in his armpits, hung back on the hill side by the scrub oaks, watching the brothers with wide eyes. Wind whipped away their scuffling footsteps and the noise of the rattling leaves.

  Finn, next to his oldest brother, paced out the dimensions of the ruins—no more than a single room—six supporting beams, all burned down close to the ground. Long ago there had been a fire here, that much confirmed by the ruins. Looking down into the stone lined cellar, they watched Sorven carefully pick his way through the piles of leaves, inspecting the walls. Cub watched Dundle looking over his shoulder, and he clicked his tongue to get Sorven’s attention.

  “Oh no!” Cub shouted. “The witch’s ghost! The ghost!” He let loose a scream, which ended in laughter as Dundle, startled by his shout, leapt in fear and slipped, sliding back down the hill on his backside! Finn and Sorven joined in the laughter, watching the boy disappear over the crest of the hill.

  “Not funny!” Dundle called from somewhere down below. Still chuckling, Cub helped Finn climb down to the cellar where Sorven rooted in the debris. Finn hesitated, the room chilly and dark with shadows. Cub cleared his throat, “Sorven, we need to leave soon. There is nothing here…”

  “If there’s any treasure, it would be down here,” he seemed angry. Finn placed his hand on the cold stones of the wall and picked at the moss and lichen. Cub examined a few wider stones that seemed to be empty shelves.

  “There is no treasure here—if there was treasure it would have been looted years ago. This is not the place…. This is just an abandoned homestead. This is not the place where Grandfather Alf killed the witch,” Cub stated in a matter of fact way.

  “Ho,” Sorven cried, “What’s this?” and he held up a rusty cast iron pot, half covered in loam. He shook the dirt free, banged it against the wall to knock the last bits out and set it cock-eyed in the center of the fire pit. Cub and Finn stepped up to the hearth facing Sorven, Cub still smiling at the joke he’s played on Dundle. Eying the rust pocked bowl, Cub snorted at the find, “Come on, it’s time we should go.”

  “I give up. I don’t think there’s really any treasure here,” Sorven said shaking his head, disappointment in his tone, “unless we count this….” He reached down and turned the pock-marked pot in the hearth stones, setting it straighter.

  “Ouch!” he held up his hand, his finger cut on a sharp edge, a drip of blood splashed on the old iron bowl.

  Both Cub and Finn saw a flicker of light behind Sorven, a fleeting flash suddenly there, suddenly gone.

  ‘Oh,” Finn exclaimed.

  “What?” Sorven asked. ‘What’s wrong?” He turned around and looked behind himself.

  Cub blinked his eyes, cleared his throat and replied, “Nothing, nothing… let’s get out of here. We need to get back home before we’re late and catch a beating.” Cub motioned for his brothers to leave the ruins before him and he paused to glance around, squinting in the gloom. Sorven led the way, kicking at the humps of grass on the hillside. Finn, his heart beating fast, followed closely. Simple and easy, they climbed down by sliding on their backsides. Dundle waited impatiently by the pony, stroking its snout.

  “No treasure there,” Sorven told him. “A waste of time,” he muttered as he climbed aboard the wagon. Cub helped Finn up next to his brother, who fiddled with his sleeve, wrapping his finger to stem the blood that oozed from his fresh cut. Pulling the hobble free, a pasty faced Dundle joined Cub in the front, and they turned the wagon around. Cub put the reins to the gelding.

  Finn rode quietly next to his grumbling brother, staring at the buckboards and breathing hard to slow his heartbeat, calming himself as they put distance between the cart and the hill. Dundle loudly complained that Cub’s joke wasn’t funny at all, but Cub rode in silence, flicking the reins and checking over his shoulder at the boys and hill. As they pulled into the overgrown lane, Finn sat up and turned back to look at that unnatural hill in the middle of the field.

  Finn saw it, he was sure—in that instant when the light flashed he has seen a person standing behind Sorven, a hunched figure reaching for his brother.

  Chapter 4

  Karl

  “Loki’s pranks!”

  Hamdir cursed at the pile of tinder and kindling. Keeping a fire lit was a chore but rolling a stick to start fire afresh in damp tinder raised blisters on his palms and tried his patience. If he only had prepared some touchwood fungus, pounded flammable felt that smoldere
d for days, but they had not thought to make any before they left. Karl stood over him, watching his men tramp through the forest pulling wet firewood from the snow and pine straw. Their second night in the field and not one report of game, save Goorm and Karl’s tracks at the bog, the swamp that MacDonnell had warned them off. At least Erik’s falcon had brought down some partridge for an evening meal.

  Goorm dragged a shaggy, downed branch to their camp and shook off the bits of ice and loose leaves. Havar broke the branches in his ham-sized hands, grunting with each snap and setting the firewood in a neat pile across from where Hamdir bent over his sticks and tinder. Erik and Sven both stumbled up in the deepening evening gloom, arms full of kindling. With a sigh, Hamdir dropped to his hands and knees and gently blew, nursing a spark amid his fluffy tinder. A curl of weak smoke lifted from his pile and he began to carefully set small sticks around the tiny flames. Goorm stamped his feet to shake off the snow and get his blood moving in the chill evening air. Soon the fire flamed as tall as a man’s knee and smoked heavily, burning off wet bark. After setting his hooded bird in a low branch three steps from the camp, Erik joined Sven to sit on their haunches next to the warmth.

  Karl kept an eye on the horizon—no sign of Jormander and Vermund yet, the evening sky purple, the remaining sun sinking fast behind the moors.

  “Maybe they found game,” Goorm watched the open field, “Maybe they have better luck.”

  Karl nodded, watching Erik begin to pluck the birds and prepare them for the spit. A clear sky, the stars began to sparkle. Karl thought, it will be a hard frost tonight—at least there is no wind. Hamdir scooped snow into his water pouch and set it near the fire to melt.

  “Build the fire a bit higher, in case they need a watch light,” Karl told them. Havar bent to comply, stacking the pyre higher. Sparks swirled up into the cold evening sky.

  As the fowl began to roast, the two stragglers came over the horizon, dark smudges on the dusky moors. They moved at a quick, careful pace. As they entered the circle of fire light, Sven called out, “You’re late.”

  “Missed gathering firewood,” Erik told them, “I guess that means first watch, eh, Captain?”

  “Or last to supper!” Goorm laughed. Jormander cast his glance around the men and stooped to warm his hands by the fire without a word. He panted heavily, out of breath. A smear of mud marked his forehead.

  Vermund crossed to Karl, tapped him on the arm and pulled him aside. He struggled to speak while he caught his breath.

  “Wolves, Captain,” he whispered hoarsely, “We were trailed all afternoon, not close, but we could see them, occasionally, out on the moors. Tried to lose them before coming back…Gray and black wolves. Not a big pack but more than we could count.”

  “Why do you say not a big pack?”

  “They never attacked us two,” Vermund coughed and spit, “We were alone—if they had superior numbers, they would have attacked.” Karl nodded in agreement. “Unless desperate hungry, wolves shy from people,” Vermund continued, “but these were tailing us, watching our moves, stalking our steps. I didn’t like it—we tried to lose them but…” He looked back into the deepening night around their camp. Karl clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Get some food,” he told him. “We have fire, we have swords and we have numbers. All is right now.”

  The day had not gone well. Avoiding the swamp to the north, Karl’s men had spread out over the moors in pairs as they had the day before, but none returned with game. Now this, a pack of scavengers to dog their paths, more of a nuisance than a real threat to eight armed men. The day consisted of trudging through ankle deep drifts, pushing aside clumps of icy heather and frost wilted sedge following the merest hint of a trail. Cold enough that tired muscles cramped from the chill, wet and sore from hiking in overcast weather, each pushed up to the open fire, warming their fingers and thighs. They ate the roast birds in relative silence, crouched around the blaze, licking grease from their fingers. Sven banked the coals and stacked a few logs across the pile.

  “Well, we may be fine seamen, and the greatest warrior east men in Midgard, but for hunters,” Jormander sneered, “We may as well be little girls, eh?” A single guffaw broke from Havar, and grumbles of agreement rose from the others.

  “Tomorrow will be better,” Karl cautioned, “I have a plan.” He threw a gnawed bone into the flames. “Tonight though, we have some company. Look away from the fire and let your eyes get used to the dark…”

  Vermund had been keeping his back to the firelight and spoke up, “I count five pairs of eyes…”

  “What is it?” Goorm stood up and placed his hand on his axe.

  “Wolves,” Karl answered, “a ragged pack that tailed Jormander and Vermund today. We will need to keep a strict watch tonight—they smell the food.”

  Havar grunted, “Not a problem, Captain, not a problem, I’ve dealt with wolves before. They won’t charge us. They don’t work that way. If really hungry, they will slink into camp to try to steal some food.” He shook his fist at the darkness, “A good boot will chase them away.”

  “Your boot will chase them away,” Jormander responded. “It’s the size of a club! Probably bigger than those wolves.”

  “Ha! Don’t worry little word-smith,” Havar patted Jormander’s head. “I will protect you.” The men chuckled quietly at this joke, each searching the darkness for the glint of a beast’s eye reflecting firelight.

  “We will keep watch in pairs tonight, standing to stay awake,” Karl told them. “No napping, do you hear? I will share the first watch with Hamdir, then Goorm and Sven, then Erik and Havar, and last watch, Jormander and Ver.” He paced around the fire, “Keep this burning high, we have enough wood. And sleep head to the fire, man to man, close, so we are not surprised.” Everyone nodded in agreement, pulled their bedrolls closer to the flames and spread them close as instructed.

  Karl faced into the darkness with the flames at his back, adjusting his sight to the gloom. He could occasionally see the red sparkle of eyes watching the fires or hear a faint rustle of movement. He unsheathed his sword and stood, legs apart, the tip in the grass before him, his hands resting on the hilt. The fire crackled and spit. Not even a wisp of a breeze stirred the campfire, the night still, sounds dampened by the snow drifts. As the moon lifted over the horizon, three quarters full and bright enough to lessen the darkness, the pack started to howl, a lonesome sound echoing across the moors. Karl listened, trying to count the different cries. Ver’s count seemed correct, only five or six animals bayed, although their yelps came from all sides. Hamdir raised his sword in answer to the howls, and as quickly as it began, the forlorn cries stilled. Awakened by the noise, Erik stacked more wood on the fire and returned to his bedding.

  Karl could see movement now that the moon rose, especially the gray animals whose ghostly shapes stood out against the darker landscape. No dull watch tonight, he thought, a little danger keeps one awake and on his toes. In his mind he planned the following day’s hunt, plotting it like a military exercise. No more spreading their efforts in track and chase—they would set an ambush and send drivers to funnel the game to the trap. And he and Goorm knew where game lurked. They only needed to find a good place for a waylay. He finished his watch satisfied that he properly prepared, and he stooped to wake Sven and Goorm. Sven, a light sleeper, quickly sat up and relieved Hamdir, while Goorm took a few shakes and a nudge with his boot to rise, yawning and scratching his beard. With a nod, Goorm took his place and let Karl lie down on his mat and roll up in his blanket.

  Karl slept heavily, waking stiff from the chill ground. The night passed uneventfully—the pack had cleared off by morning. When the dawn light allowed investigation, Goorm and Havar paced the moors and found signs of the beasts passing, a few paw prints in the snow, an impression where one lay watching the fire. Not much else. They broke camp and marched as a group north along the tree line. Before the sun cleared the pines and long before mid-morning, the party reached the slope tha
t ended in the willows and scrub brush at the edge of the peat bog.

  Directing their hike, Karl led them along the brush to the west, looking for a suitable site. The thicket grew close and thick along the swamp’s edge. Dropping back and climbing up the rise, Erik released his falcon to circle in the morning air and wandered the hillside, kicking the weeds and grasses to scare small game. They walked quietly until they reached a place where a dead tree fall crushed the underbrush, leaving a break in the leafy wall. Karl waved at Erik and motioned for him to join them.

  “This will do,” he pointed to the bark stripped bole, still slightly propped on the backs of the broken willows and scrub trees. He started uncoiling a rope from his pack. “Here we set an ambush. Ver, Erik and Jormander, you set up to the east of this break. Tie this rope over on the west side of this tree fall, loop it twice if you can. Ver, string your bow, ready your arrows, you will need more than one bolt. Erik and Jormander, you will stand ready with your blades. When we drive game through this break, Erik and Jormander, pull up the rope to stop their run or at least hamper the crossing while Ver lets fly his arrows. If his strike be not fatal, jump in and finish it with your swords. Beware sharp hooves and antlers.”

  “Beware you don’t step in the way of Ver’s target!” Goorm warned.

  “We’re not fools,” Jormander started a smart retort, but Karl cleared his throat.

  “The rest of us will split, Goorm and I back to the east and Havar, Hamdir and Sven to the west. We are the drivers.” He held his hands up, touching thumbs, “We will quietly, quietly as you can, creep into the bog, circle the ground between us and this break in the brush. We get into position before the sun is at its highest point—that will be our cue to start our drive.” The men nodded in understanding.

  “Once we start, make whatever noise you want, just be sure to drive whatever is in front of you towards this break.” He slowly brought his palms together to illustrate his point. “We will push them towards Ver and his bow, and hopefully we will catch something in our trap. Any questions?”