The Slayer Rune (The Viking Series Book 1)

by John Snow

  Sigurd would not listen to such forebodings; he stole away.

  The warriors, his father's warriors, said it was Odin – Odin's revenge – and the seasoned fighters were afraid; all day long they sat around the warrior-table in the hall. Odd the Squinter was now their foremost man. He spoke louder than the rest.

  "That's how things go when someone breaks the oath," Odd kept saying. The men were constantly talking about the sword battle; over and over they recalled and recounted the story. At length they spoke about Gisli who had broken the rules when he killed Helgi Blackbeard. He had dishonoured the oath, and Odin's oath was sacred.

  "Now Odin takes his revenge," they said. "The head of Gisli was not enough."

  In the end, Sigurd hoped the women were right, that Frey was jealous, that Frey had struck down the tree and the grain. But he couldn't stop thinking of Gisli, of beheaded Gisli, and on the runes, and on the ways the runes could be wrongly used. And that the runes belonged to Odin, the most unruly and furious of all the gods.

  In the hall, Sigurd's father suggested that Gisli's sword, of all things, was to blame, but nobody listened to his father. How could the sword be blamed? Was it the sword's fault that Gisli had been sent to Hel?

  Whatever people believed, deep down, Sigurd was afraid. After the fight the chieftain had taken the sword, and Sigurd feared what his father knew.

  Sigurd tried to stay away from the warrior-table in the hall; he did not like the talk of Odin's revenge and of the broken oath and the fatal fight. Besides, the warriors were always complaining; they didn't get enough beer. They sat with their fists on the table as they used to, but without their drinking horns. His mother was strict. How could the fighters have beer when grain for porridge was scant?

  The warriors disliked the lack of grain and asked Sigurd what his father would do.

  Sigurd did not know, but he believed the men would stay. During the long winter there would be a shortage of food, not just on the farm at Vik, but everywhere in King Godred's kingdom. People would starve, especially the outlaws. This winter outlaws would gather in the woods in large groups and attack gards not protected by warriors.

  No, the fighters would stay.

  "When will your father choose a new captain-of-arms?" Odd asked, he was now the strongest of the warriors. He was sitting at the table, swell-headed, hoping to become the new leader. Sigurd didn't like him. Odd was cross-eyed, and Sigurd did not know which eye to trust.

  Sigurd knew his father had been under Howlinghead and asked Bork Berserk if he would be leader at Vik. Bork said no. "Not as long as Odd the Squinter sits in the hall."

  In this matter, there was no use in tempting Bork with money.

  "I don't know," Sigurd said to Odd.

  13

  The gloomy days dragged on. Outside the tiresome rain was broken up only by gales and hail showers. One day a flock of dead crows fell out of the sky. The slaves had to crawl through the mud to clear the yard of dead birds, which they probably ate in their barn.

  The warriors had refused to burn Gisli, but one cold morning he was buried at last. His head and body were cast into a pit and covered with dirt.

  Inside, sitting on his bed, pondering, Harald the Chieftain was getting new ideas about the trial, about King Godred's verdict in the murder case. Why did Godred give a judgement in favour of Thorstein Baldhead, the farmer at Bringsverd?

  Harald wondered if the king had a hidden agenda. Did he want Thorstein as an ally?

  "If Thorstein Baldhead shifts his allegiance to King Godred, dangers lie ahead," he said. Such a shift would expand King Godred's kingdom, and why should the king have two chieftains in the same area? Thorstein Baldhead might take over Vik with help from Godred.

  Sigurd's father pondered this for a long time; he was in a bad mood. Wandering about in the hall, he was very harsh and extremely angry about the silver he had been forced to pay Thorstein Baldhead.

  "It's impossible to make peace with Thorstein," his father said. "It's unthinkable." He hoped he was wrong, that the murder verdict wouldn't cause Baldhead to side with King Godred. He hoped Thorstein Baldhead still was King Greycloak's man.

  "However things are, we must prepare for battle," said Harald, the chieftain. He needed a captain-of-arms. He had been to Eskdale and asked Skarphedin the Second-Sighted, if he would be commander, but Skarphedin said no. "Not as long as Odd the Squinter sits in the hall."

  So, Vik was without a captain, and Odd sat at the warrior-table; he wanted to know why.

  Sigurd told him he didn't know.

  Sigurd went to Sigrunn, his sister. She was spinning yarn; her mother needed wool for her weaving. Sigurd sat down on a stool. He was glad to get away from the warriors even if he had to ignore the fact that he was sitting in the women's section of the hall. Here, spinning wheels lay on the floor, and hanks of yarn were hung up. Sigurd sat with a loom weight in hand.

  "Have you seen Yljali?" he asked. After the death of Gisli, Sigrunn Silkyhair was the only one he could talk to.

  "Yes," Sigrunn said; she continued spinning.

  "Where is she?"

  "Outside," his sister said.

  "With the thralls?"

  "Yes."

  Sigurd sat; he was so tired. Yljali had hardly looked at him since the day when Gisli was killed. She looked away when he arrived, or she went somewhere else.

  Sigurd's mother had said that Yljali could keep the new dress, the frock she had received when she was to marry Blackbeard, but Yljali didn't want it. After that, his mother liked her less.

  Now Yljali was with the thralls.

  Yljali and Hild had always worked as maids although they were slaves. His father had wanted it so. "Hild shall not have heavy labour," he said.

  The maids at Vik were well off. They performed the household chores; they spun wool, wove, and made clothes of wool and leather. They also worked in the cookhouse, making food and beer for all the others. Their work was hard; Sigurd's mother was a stern mistress. But the girls were indoors, out of the cold.

  The thralls were outdoors, summer or winter, doing all the backbreaking labour. They toiled in the fields, chopped wood, and carried rocks and manure. The slaves had few clothes and bad food and lived like animals, cramped in their sty with no fireplace. They were freezing all the time.

  "They get warmth from each other," his father used to say. Every year he carried newborn babies into the woods to be eaten by wild animals.

  Sigurd couldn't understand why Yljali would work outside in the rain and the cold, but he believed it was to get out of everyone's sight. He thanked the gods that she didn't sleep in the slave barn. The male thralls were vile, like slavering dogs. Inside their shed at night, she never had been able to protect herself. Working outside with the pack was bad enough, especially with Yljali's looks.

  After his visit, when King Godred had left, he didn't want to take Yljali with him. His men had lifted Helgi's body on a bier, "but Yljali stays at Vik," the king had said, and Sigurd was relieved. His father, however, was perplexed; why didn't the king want the girl? Soon he started to study Yljali.

  That was when Yljali went to the slaves. Now, in the cold, they tore down the pig house, the house the yard-tree had crushed. The thralls were driven hard; his father raged over all the pigs that had run away.

  Sigurd sat where he sat, with the loom weight in hand; he sought solace in his mother's hangings. But there was little consolation to find. His mother was weaving a new tapestry with images from Ragnarok. The Midgard serpent showed in the loom, writhing in fury, and Surt, the flame army, coming up from the south, devouring everything. There were gygres and giants and everything evil in the web, but worst of all was Fenrir, the wolf. With great jaws the wolf swallowed the sun, before attacking Odin.

  "It is the seeress's prophecy," his mother explained from the tapestry. She was heavy of heart and always dressed in drab, colourless garments. Even her keys rattled less than before.

  His mother had finished the previous tap
estry, the one about Frey and Gerd, in a hurry. It was about Frey, who fell in love with Gerd and sent his friend Skirne to propose. Gerd refused at first; she would not give in to Frey, but Skirne had started to threaten her.

  Sigrunn, Sigurd's sister, had been fond of the artwork, but she didn't like the end.

  The story ended in Barley Grove, where Frey and Gerd finally met. The wall hanging showed what Frey did to Gerd in the grove. In image after image her mother depicted Frey ploughing Gerd's meadow. Only Sigurd's father didn't see that Frey and his plough resembled the dwarf.

  Overall, his father was ill. He used to be loud and proud with red hair and beard, walking around the farm with a voice of authority. Now he scuffed his feet about, bent and heavy. His shoulders hung down; he walked around brooding, lost in thought.

  His father had stopped going down to the house of Hild. After the killings, he had been with Hild a couple of times. He soon came out of the house, and he was not happy, slapping the girls for no reason; even Sigrunn was scolded.

  Neither did his father have much affection for his mother any more. From their sleeping quarters, no sound was heard. Before, Sigurd had heard laughter, groaning, and screaming at night. But of late, it was quiet. The only sound Sigurd could hear was his father's snoring.

  Sigurd stayed seated, looking at the fiends and brutes in his mother's carpet. What was all the mad stuff his mother wove about?

  The scariest thing of all, though, was that Hakon Mute had begun to speak.

  Hakon was his brother. He was three winters older than Sigurd, and Hakon had been silent since he was a little boy. At that age, he had been speaking, until one day he had stopped. His father had scared him, and after that he had not said a single word. Hakon Bigmouth he was sometimes called; he was often teased.

  His father hated Hakon. He was the eldest son and should have been the coming chief, but who could have a dumb leader?

  Otherwise, except for his dumbness, Hakon was like most boys. He was tall and strong and good with knives and swords, and he loved competing. But sometimes he couldn't hear, and at such moments Hakon was far gone, lost in rage. He hated his father back.

  Hakon had started to speak again the night the farm tree broke. After the second crack, the one that crushed the pigsty, he rose in the hall and shouted.

  "I can hear who is to blame!" Hakon called. "There was first one, and now one more!"

  People were terrified at first, but soon everyone rushed out in the yard to see what had happened. Hakon was forgotten in the horrors. The tree had broken, the sty was crushed, and the pigs and piglets squealed and ran like mad. People raced around, trying to catch the pigs.

  Next day Hakon spoke again. He said many strange and dark things about guilt and death and evil forces. Sigurd didn't exactly like it, but his father hated Hakon even more.

  "I can sense you are like Father," Hakon had said to Sigurd one day.

  They had been standing in the doorway watching Hild; she carried yarn into the hall. Their mother dyed large amounts of wool, which she dried in an empty barn; she needed the yarn for her weaving. Hakon glared at Hild as she laboured.

  Hakon was taller than Sigurd. His hair was brown, his eyes were brown, and he had been looking at Sigurd with a dark glare.

  "Like Father." What did Hakon mean by that?

  Sigurd sat, and he kept sitting on the stool, thinking. His hair hung down on his shoulders; it had not been cut in ages. Sigurd studied the woven images, the figures. Fenrir and the Midgard serpent, and Surt and the flames.

  "Is this where you are sitting?" someone said; it was his father. Was he trying to be friendly?

  His father took a stool and sat down. He studied the beasts in the loom; he was particularly concerned with the fight between Odin and Fenrir, the wolf.

  "No," he finally said.

  "We must try to put an end to this," his father said. He moved his eyes from the loom to Sigurd.

  "The day after tomorrow, I will perform a sacrifice," he said, "and you will get Gisli's sword."

  14

  Sigurd went down to visit Grim. After the talk with his father, he had questions to ask. When he was about to open the door, he saw three birds hanging under the eaves of the hut: two ravens and a crow. The birds had been gutted and hung out to dry.

  In the cold weather Grim stayed indoors, reading one of his books. He was sitting at the table in his grey robe. He let his finger run along rows of letters, slowly muttering the words into emptiness. He looked up when Sigurd entered.

  Grim didn't tell more stories of Hel, Valhall, or the halls of Freya, and he spoke little of runes. Sigurd was grateful, but still uneasy, frightened about the slayer rune and what he had done.

  Grim had started calling Sigurd by the name of Sigve. He didn't understand why. Grim said Sigve meant a call of victory, but Sigurd thought it had to do with his use of the slayer rune. He knew sig meant triumph, and Sigurd a victorious person. He also knew that ve meant grievance, that ve was pain.

  Sigve – victory and pain?

  Grim studied Sigurd with his one eye; he began telling about the great tree.

  "Yggdrasil the tree is called," Grim said. "It is a huge ash with roots spreading all around the world. It has three roots, and beneath one root lies Hel, where murderers drift around."

  Sigurd stiffened on the bench; he envisioned Gisli in Hel, in the silent coldness. Did Gisli float around in one or two parts? Was his head separated from his body?

  "Under the second root, the elf maidens live," Grim continued. "Elf maidens are women full of energy. They guard the secrets of life and death, and the most powerful maiden is Gullveig. She is tall and beautiful, well endowed, but barren. She has dark eyes; they are like deep wells with jewels at the bottom.

  "Gullveig was born three times, and she gives off a breath-taking scent that no man can resist. Overcome by lust they start to struggle and kill. Gullveig may be one, two or three women at once. From time to time she moves into the human place under the tree."

  Sigurd was looking at Grim; these were strange things he was telling, but it was better than Hel, where the head of Gisli drifted around.

  "Under the third root of Yggdrasil, humanity lives," Grim said. "Here the humans reside, with their toil and moil. They live and die, and can do nothing else, for under the tree the norns live.

  "The norns are goddesses of fate, of love and hate; they are weaving on the loom of destiny. All the lives of people and gods, past and present, have been woven on their loom. Your thread of life was long ago spun and placed in their great image."

  Grim stared at Sigurd. His gaze was sharp.

  Sigurd flinched. What was this about? He tried to control his writhing on the bench. Grim's gaze made him very uneasy.

  "Against the norns, everyone fights in vain; their destiny is already fixed," Grim said. "The only thing a man can do is to fulfil his fate. To run away is useless; Ragnarok is coming anyway.

  "It is all written in the Web of Norns."

  Said Grim and turned his eye inwards.

  Grim remained sitting, grunting with his mouth open. The white in his eye was filled with red threads, and the eye quivered slightly. What did he see inside? Sigurd studied the room; skulls of animals hung from the ceiling, casting shadows: flickering silent shadows.

  "Yggdrasil is the tree of wisdom," Grim said as he turned his eye outwards. "Yggdrasil is Odin's gallows. In Yggdrasil Odin hanged himself for nine days and nine nights before he gathered the runes and words of wisdom."

  "Odin was hanging in the tree in terrible pain. On the third night, he got the names of the runes, and on the sixth night, he learned the meaning of the rune-words. Eventually, on the ninth night, he heard how the runes should be used, and he fell from the tree, onto the ground. He was dead, but with him, he brought the secret of runes, the rune powers. He woke up from death."

  Sigurd did not like the direction the conversation was taking, towards runes. He remembered how the slayer rune had quickened Gisli's
sword in the fight against Helgi Blackbeard. He saw the blade entering Helgi's chest and coming out of his back. He wanted to talk about something else.

  "What is the seeress' prophecy?" Sigurd demanded. He recalled the creatures in his mother's loom, especially those his father had studied.

  "The crones," Grim said, "are the wisest of women; they see all that has been and all that will be."

  "But how is it possible?" Sigurd asked.

  "Do you see the runes here?" Grim answered. He pointed at the book. "They are but black lines and nothing else."

  Sigurd followed Grim's finger. The runes in the book were slightly different from the ones on the rune wand.

  "Yes," Sigurd agreed; he stared down into Grim's book. The runes were long rows of black lines that Sigurd couldn't read.

  "But when I read," said Grim, "kings rise from the runes, and heroes make ready to fight the dragon. From the runes, blood runs out of the wound when the spear has pierced the dragon's belly."

  "Yes," Sigurd uttered, but he was not sure.

  "It's the same with sounds," Grim said, pointing to his lips. "The sounds from my lips become kings in your ears. You have heard of Harald Fairhair, the king who let his hair grow until he had killed all his enemies. But have you seen him?"

  "No."

  "Yes," Grim said. "You see him when I tell his story. The sounds from my lips become Harald Fairhair in your mind.

  "And so it is with the crone, the seeress, the famous volva," Grim continued. "She can see into all worlds and events. The thing is, she needs neither sound nor rune to see and hear. Without a rune, the seeress looks into the great tale of the world's beginning and end. She hears the threads of fate running through the Web of Norns. Everything she can hear and see, without a sound. That's how the crone predicts the future."

  Sigurd stared at Grim; this was very strange speech indeed.

  "It was the same with Odin," said Grim. "When he hanged himself from Yggdrasil, he saw into everything. And so it is with everyone who dies; they see pictures of all that has happened and all that will come. That is why dying persons predict the truth."