The Slayer Rune (The Viking Series Book 1)

by John Snow

  The chamber turned quiet and haunting. Faint echoes of horses announced the coming of the king, but Sigurd didn't hear the sounds, only the silence filling the room. The silence quivered in the faint light from the smoke vent. Wasn't it also a bit cold? The candle on the table fluttered, and Sigurd sensed a slight draft. He felt the draft was coming from Grim.

  "Do you know who goes to Hel?" Grim asked.

  "No."

  "It's men who dare not fight and women slandering their own."

  Abruptly, Grim turned his eye inwards.

  Sigurd was shaken but continued to stare at the white of Grim's eye; he knew it was fruitless to utter anything before Grim turned his eye outwards. As he rolled his eye inwards, Grim pulled up his hood, and such he stayed seated, his mouth gaping. Like this he might stay for a long time; Sigurd never knew.

  He started looking around Grim's dwelling. Everything in the room was coarsely hewn: table, pillars, and bedstead. Old animal bones were hanging everywhere.

  The room was partitioned. Behind heavy curtains Hild and Yljali slept, and now that Grim's eye was looking inwards, Sigurd cast a glance at the curtains. He listened, but could hear no one, very well knowing that the maids were up at the farm. Still, he thought he could smell a scent of women.

  Sigurd watched Grim, studying his inward-pointing eye. The apple of the eye had a fine network of red threads, and Sigurd wondered why it started to quiver when gazing inwards. Could it see anything inside?

  Grim's other eye was just a large hole and an ugly scar. Nothing was there, except for the old wound. People said Grim had torn out the eye himself, with his own fingers, but Sigurd was not sure, and he did not dare to ask. Once Grim had said it was the missing eye he used when seeing.

  At Vik most people were afraid of Grim, and Sigurd was also scared. When Grim turned his eye inwards, he started breathing with his mouth open, and his throat made a strange and frightening sound. Not many dared to look at him then, but Sigurd knew that Grim could be kind, even though he was old and ugly.

  "Do you want to go to Hel?" Grim asked. He rolled his eye back out and pulled his hood off, looking at Sigurd. "To the place where men are shadows and no one can speak?"

  "No," Sigurd answered. He did not like the subject; he felt the dead animals in the room hovering above him.

  "Then, you must never fear death," Grim said. "He who fears death, is already dead.

  "That is why you must to go to battle when needed. And you must never kill a man by cheat or deceit. That is murder, and murderers go straight to Hel. Or worse, to Nivlheim, a hall so bad that even the blue-faced giantess despises the place."

  "But the other kinds of death?" Sigurd asked; he wanted to talk about something else.

  "The second kind of death is not a gygre, but many fair women," Grim said. "They are the ravishing valkyries, choosers of the slain. With long wavering hair, they come riding on flying horses. They are the most beautiful women alive. On their horses the valkyries glide through the air and pick up fallen warriors from the battlefield."

  Sigurd liked the talk of valkyries bringing dead fighters home to Valhall.

  "Valhall is Odin's great hall," Grim said. "In the hall they fight all the time. Every day the warriors go to combat and kill each other. Just the same, in the evening they get up, eat and drink, and are ready to fight next day".

  Sigurd had heard the story many times. His father's warriors often spoke of Valhall; it was the place the fighters wanted to go to – in the end.

  Today, by the way, King Godred was coming with all his warriors. Had they arrived? Gradually Sigurd noticed all the sounds from the farmyard; he could hear yelling and laughter. The clamour had grown louder.

  King Godred was not king of all of Norway, but he was powerful; he was son of Bjorn the Trader, who again was son of Harald Fairhair, the greatest of all Norwegian kings. Godred was ruler of many chieftains, but Sigurd's father didn't like him.

  "What can I do?" his father used to say. "It is Godred who warrants my power. Without King Godred, Vik will be swallowed by the ruler of Bringsverd," he said. "The thanes at Bringsverd have always tried to steal the trade from Vik."

  Sigurd did not understand it. Kalv Kolson, the thane at Bringsverd, was an outcast; he was exiled years ago. It happened before Sigurd was born. With all his talk, Sigurd reckoned his father was trying to conceal his stealthy killing of Eigil, the son of the current chieftain at Bringsverd, the boy they killed the night when Sigurd and his mother were waiting in the hall.

  "King Godred must never know this," his father had said when he wiped the blood off his blade.

  "If you want to go to Valhall, to the courts of Odin, you have to die in combat," Grim said, looking at Sigurd.

  "But now I'll tell you about the mysterious shield-maidens."

  "The thing is that some of the valkyries, the most beautiful, bring dead warriors to Freya, to the goddess of love.

  "In the hall of Freya," said Grim, "the walls are hung with colourful tapestries, and soft furs cover the benches. No one wears clothes in the hall of Freya, and the room is filled with the scent of naked men and naked women.

  "The men are always ready in Freya's hall, and the women always wet. Couples make love everywhere, all in the open, and if your beloved goes off with another man, she will always come back. Every time. Such is love-making in Freya's hall."

  "Who gets to go there?" Sigurd asked.

  "To Freya those warriors and women come who have loved each other all their lives."

  Sigurd pondered this for a while, looking at the curtains dividing the room. He asked if his father and mother would go to the hall of Freya.

  "What do you think?" Grim answered.

  No, Sigurd didn't know what to think. He believed his mother and father loved each other. At night, in the darkness of the hall, he often heard them caressing under the furs. His mother laughed and moaned and whined. She screamed. She enjoyed his father's treatment, but in daytime they argued without stop.

  His father complained about everything, foremost the food and the mead, the housewife's responsibility. His mother, on the other hand, did not like that his father was with Hild, the slave rabble, as she called her.

  Hild and Yljali slept in the house of Grim, behind the curtains, and Sigurd's mother thought it bad that Hild and the slave child should have a house of their own, "all by themselves." She did not count Grim, it seemed.

  His father did not listen to such grumbles. Whenever he visited Hild, he ordered Grim and Yljali out of the room – or Sigurd, if he happened to be there.

  Drunk, in the hall, to his men, his father boasted of his lasting power, saying Hild could keep him going on for as long as she wanted. Flashing an erect finger and squeezing it hard, he claimed that Hild's fuck was even tighter than her suck.

  Sigurd's father always stayed long with Hild. When, at last, he pulled himself out of her, he was ever in a good mood. Leaving Grim's house, he was smiling and laughing and telling jokes to everyone. He would even stop and speak to the slaves. He lifted the girls, most often Yljali, up on his lap. He used to play with Yljali's hair.

  "It smells so good," he said, "just like a young weasel."

  But one day, when his father started sniffing Yljali's body, Sigurd darkened.

  And his mother turned furious.

  "You will not touch Yljali!" she told his father. They were quarrelling in the great hall and did not know that Sigurd sat behind a loom in the corner.

  "No, no…" his father said.

  "Do you swear?"

  "Yes, I swear," his father said, and his mother found the ring.

  There, in the hall, his father had sworn by Odin's ring that he would never touch Yljali.

  Sigurd shook his head, looking at Grim.

  "I don't know," he said.

  "No, no one knows who will enjoy the halls of Freya when they die," Grim said.

  Grim didn't get any further, for in the same moment the door slammed open, and in came Sigurd's father.
Harald, the chieftain, had to bow his head to enter, banging his sword against the doorframe. He was massive, Sigurd's father, with his red hair and beard.

  "So, this is where you're hiding, you Loki spawn!" he yelled, spit flying from his beard. "Don't you know we have guests?"

  His father's voice was harsh and brutal.

  "And you – you old hag!" he said to Grim, "Do you want to make a girl of the boy? And who allowed you to set up the table in the middle of the morning?"

  Harald grabbed the side of the board and flipped it over with all its contents, rune wand and books.

  "But the books?" Sigurd whispered.

  "Books and runes, runes and books," his father wheezed, "now it's time you learn weapon-use! Remember, you are soon of age, soon to kill your first man!"

  Sigurd was dragged head first through the door up towards the farmyard, but as they drew closer to the crowd, Sigurd grew angry at his father's hand. He pulled his arm free.

  His father said nothing; he only cast a fierce glance at Sigurd, before his wide back moved ahead towards the farm. Sigurd was overwhelmed by the speed his father achieved with the sword hanging by his side.

  Walking upwards, Sigurd could still feel his father's grip on his arm. He straightened his cloak; it was almost ripped off. The cloak was short and sheep-black. It was not dyed, but it was new, woven with a fine thread.

  Sigurd straightened himself; he tried to stride ahead like his father, but he felt awkward. His father was so damned self-secure.

  Sigurd saw that his father's paces turned softer; he was closing in on the courtyard. Had he already forgotten him? Or had he caught sight of Hild? His father straightened his sword before he disappeared around the corner by the tree, looking satisfied, it seemed. Perhaps he had spotted Yljali?

  Sigurd jumped at the thought; he shuddered.

  Still, it was easier to walk now his father was out of sight. Sigurd fixed his cloak and strode up towards the hall.

  3

  Dragons roared and carved snakes twisted along the gables. The hall at Vik was large, longer than two warships. At the end of the hall, close to the cornfields, the enormous yard-tree grew high in the air.

  Drawing near to the tree, Sigurd glimpsed the forge up the slope; it had a roof of stone slabs. Beneath the forge the horg house shone, the god shrine. There the gods dwelt: Odin, Thor, and Frey.

  Sigurd reached the massive farm tree, passed the roaring dragons, and heard a buzz of talk and activity. Even more people had arrived: the whole company of King Godred.

  "The ugly pig-face," Sigurd whispered; he had heard his father say the same.

  He entered the yard.

  It was easy to see who was king. King Godred stood in the middle, and around him, the warriors. The king had jewellery of gold and a clanging sword from Valland. He was powerful, a mighty king, but he was far from handsome. He had small piercing eyes, like those of a feral pig, and he was not very tall.

  Helgi Blackbeard was larger; he towered high above the king. Helgi was the king's armourer, head of the warriors, his captain-of-arms. He was huge and fat with an enormous, greyish beard, full of snot and food waste. His nose was bulbous and the nostrils so wide that the king, for the fun of it, used to stick his thumbs in, one in each hole.

  Right now, the king's men were clearing space for competitions, and, rumbling proudly, Helgi Blackbeard led the work. One man paced out a track with a rounding stake sixty paces away. The warriors set up poles – targets for spear throwing – and they made room for swordplay. Today the youngsters would fight.

  In a circle around the men, the women stood spying. They peered and gossiped and pointed at the warriors. Behind the women, in front of the barn, the slaves were watching with Hild and Yljali in the lead. Yljali wore colourless slave garments, but Sigurd only saw her eyes and her hair. Glowing, her dark hair billowed down her narrow shoulders. Her eyes revealed that she had seen him coming.

  Sigurd did not spot his father.

  He went straight for Gisli, his father's armourer. Gisli had handled the weapons that night when his father killed Eigil, the neighbour's son. Gisli had followed his father into the dark, and afterwards he had cleaned and oiled the blades.

  Gisli greeted Sigurd and nodded approvingly to his new outfit, his new cloak. He smiled and said nothing about Sigurd's shirking.

  Beside Gisli, Sigrunn stood, Sigurd's sister. She wore a beautiful red-brown suit, and her hair was twined in a long braid. Sigrunn had light, silk-thin hair. Sigrunn Silkyhair she was called; usually her hair hung freely down her back.

  Sigrunn was younger than Sigurd; she had small breasts, smaller than Yljali's. Sigrunn and Yljali were of the same age and good friends, but today they were not together. The king could not see the chieftain's daughter playing with a slave.

  "This seems to take some time," Gisli said, pointing at the men stretching ropes and knocking down poles.

  "Shall we look around?"

  However Sigurd turned it over, Gisli was his man. He was tall and slim and had curly blond hair. His blue eyes were always smiling. Gisli was from Iceland, and once he had been in the king's army. Not in Godred's army, but in the great king's army, Gisli said, in the army of Eirik Bloodaxe.

  Every time Gisli spoke of King Eirik, he took a deep breath and drew himself up. With a twinkle in his eye, he tried to look big and mighty, but Gisli was lean and sinewy – and he stayed lean and sinewy: he was joking.

  "He is a lethal warrior," Sigurd's father used to say.

  As always, Gisli wore his sword by his side, and Sigurd, as usual, had to admire his weapon. It was the best blade at Vik; it was bright and sharp, and it could split rocks. The handle was made of red dark wood, and the pommel and guard were in gilded steel.

  "This sword feeds ravens," Gisli often said; he carried the sword everywhere, even inside the hall.

  They started to wander, Gisli, Sigurd, and his sister; there were lots of things to see. Around the yard were stalls from which people sold swords and shoes, jewellery, and various types of pungent-smelling water. An old woman sold herbs. She was the Witch from Spedale, selling leaves – "against illness", she said, but Sigurd knew it was for men, to make them more active in bed. The dry leaves could be ground into powder and mixed with mead.

  They watched her for a while, and the old witch traded well it seemed, also to many women.

  For some time, they studied the fighting cocks. The roosters were exhibited in three large cages, and beside the coops stood a slave with a stick, eager to chase dogs away.

  Gisli said the red rooster would defeat the black, and that the white rooster was without a chance. In the evening there would be cock fighting and dog fighting and maybe even horse fighting.

  After the fights, all the grown-ups would get drunk, and in the dark, leaving the hall to pee, the women had to watch out for the king's warriors. Sigurd knew, however, that many women slipped out of the hall more often than they needed.

  The king's horses were quite a sight. King Godred's stallion was a large, Frisian warhorse. It was shiny and black and all in all a little uneasy. Helgi Blackbeard's gelding was nearly as big; it was brown. The horses snorted and stamped their hooves into the ground.

  "Do you know that Helgi has larger nostrils than the gelding?" Gisli said, pointing at the big brown horse.

  Sigrunn and Sigurd had to laugh; they had seen the king stick his thumbs into Helgi's nostrils.

  Finally, they came to the dwarf tent.

  The tent was put up by itself near the horg. The king's party always brought along an oddity, something strange. Last year they had a white bear in chains; this year they brought a dwarf. The tent was in sharp red colours.

  Sigrunn Silkyhair asked if it was a real dwarf. Gisli smiled and said it was a human dwarf, a tiny little man, a manikin.

  "True dwarfs, those living in mountains, are impossible to capture," he said.

  They had to wait outside the tent; there was a queue. Gisli had to pay before they entered. An
d what a strange man! He was smaller than their little sister, with short legs and lumpy arms, but with an ordinarily sized head. How was it possible to be so small?

  The dwarf just stood there, small as he was. He was almost naked, wearing nothing but a cloth around his waist. Sigrunn could not keep herself from laughing, but suddenly the dwarf pulled the cloth away. And his thing was not small; it was abnormally large and heavy. It was swaying back and forth, dribbling.

  With both hands the dwarf lifted the member, and by a single jerk, it straightened up, swelling and stirring, blood veins twisting and bulging all along its length. He asked if Sigrunn wanted to feel it, and about to raise her hand, startled, she turned around and bolted out, burning and blushing.

  Sigurd and Gisli were left standing and staring. Sigurd had seen naked men in the bathhouse many times. Sometimes the young made themselves hard, just to see who had the largest. But the one the dwarf possessed…

  "Did you see that thing?" Sigurd gasped as they tumbled out of the tent.

  They didn't get a chance to say any more; inside the farmyard people were waving and shouting. They wanted Sigurd to join the meet.

  Everything was ready; the young boys were waiting anxiously, and Sigurd raced them on the track. He won several times, but in the last round he lost to the son of the king. When they rounded the stake, Sigurd was leading, but the heir overtook him on their way back.

  What a damned shame, Sigurd thought. He didn't like to lose, but he knew with himself it was not very smart winning ahead of King Godred's son.

  Harald was the name of the heir; he pranced around with a swagger, making Sigurd want to puke. He had such long legs, the king-son, and such unreasonably long arms. Harald's hair was yellow and stiff. Harald Grenske he was called. He was handsome, with an oval face and a perky expression.

  He seems to believe he will never lose, Sigurd thought.

  In throwing-spears they were equal. Two hits each, they threw at poles. As the warriors made room for sword fighting, Helgi came forward, looking cocky. Helgi Blackbeard presented the swords; he was judge.

  Harald Grenske and Sigurd were given wooden swords. When practicing with full-grown warriors, the youngsters were allowed to use real swords. When fighting amongst themselves, the boys used wooden ones.