Berserker (Omnibus)

by Robert Holdstock

  Deirdre chanted a smattering of words and a sudden, strange wind blew sand about their feet. One of the ships, the smallest, began to move towards them, its dragon-headed prow rising and falling in the swell, its unfurled sail billowing and flapping uselessly about the mast.

  As the great ship ploughed into the beach, Harald jumped backwards and then hauled himself across the shield rail and into the shallow hull. He reached out a hand for Deirdre’s and she touched his fingers, briefly. Her smile was the parting smile of one who acknowledges a great debt, and a genuine wish that time could wait a while so they might tarry together without the inexorable decay of life and the world about them.

  ‘Get to the tiller,’ she said. ‘And on no account look back over your shoulder towards me, or your crew will desert you, fleeing through your eyes back to the shore.’

  ‘I shan’t look back,’ he said, glancing along the ship. ‘What crew?’

  ‘Get to the tiller,’ she urged, and he ran along the hull and sat on the right of the ship, with the tiller firm beneath his arm.

  The ship slipped back into the water and slowly turned so that he faced the open sea, and as he watched the heaving swell so the oars were gripped by unseen hands and began to strike the waves with perfect rhythm.

  The ship ploughed outwards across the bay, the wind catching the sail, now lashed and secure, and urging the great vessel onwards. The oars rose and fell, and the sea sped by, even the clouds above seeming to race across the heavens as the long ship cut a swathe through the white-capped waves.

  Harald longed to look back, but he remembered his words. It was not for some moments that he realised how he could wave good-bye without breaking the spell and losing his invisible crew.

  He turned the tiller and the ship leaned awkwardly to port and slowly turned in the bay.

  He never looked back, but soon the dragon prow was outlined against the green hills and the dead-littered beach. The sail flapped and complained, and the ship came dangerously near to overturning, but the circle was completed fast, and the vessel survived.

  In the moments before that circle was finished, however, he saw her, scrambling up the last few feet of a rise. She stood high on the ridge, and her red hair grew brighter and brighter until she was engulfed in flame, reached upwards to the sky, and was carried into the heavens at the mercy of the winds.

  Then he faced the open sea, and the strange spell guided the oars until, without instruction, they were shipped as the strong ocean wind took the great sail and pushed the ship home by a more natural power.

  PART THREE

  The Quest

  CHAPTER NINE

  Days and weeks passed.

  The ocean heaved and the salt spray caked his beard and his eyes, saturated his clothes, froze him. When the northern sea blew wild and stormy he crouched in the pit of the long ship, sensing the swaying and bucking of the vessel, watching the way the course was held steady by unseen hands on the great tiller. When the sea was calm and the summer sun shone hot and bright on the silver-specked fields of white and blue, he scoured the waves for anything that might fill his belly.

  It rained and he slaked his thirst. An inquisitive seal bumped gently against the ship’s hull as a gentle breeze billowed the sail and carried the vessel slowly northwards, just out of sight of the craggy rocks of the land of the Caledonians. Harald reached over the side and swiftly slaughtered the friendly animal, dragged its carcass into the boat and consumed its warm, salty flesh until his stomach threatened to burst.

  The boat creaked onwards. The great sail flapped and slapped at the mast, and the silent, invisible crew crouched beside their unused oars, waiting for the calm of the Norse shores.

  Days, many days came and went, then so many weeks at sea that time ceased to pass. The moon and the sun became muddled in Harald’s mind as he crouched in the shadow of the sail, or peered at the endless sea through crusted eye that longed for the sight of land.

  One day, at dawn, dark cliffs greeted his gaze as he stood on the prow, leaning heavily against the dragon’s head and praying to all the gods he could remember for an end to the agony of this crossing.

  At first he thought they were clouds, as so often in the past weeks he had been deceived. But they were not clouds; the jagged skyline, and the scattering of tall fir trees along the very rim of the land, soon convinced him that he had, indeed, arrived back in the land of his ancestors.

  He ran down the ship, yelling for joy, and grasping the shifting tiller, holding it steady, despite the strong current that tried to turn it aside, directing the ship straight towards the distant crags.

  At a point along the shallows where the first dark rocks cut above the white foamed water, he turned the long ship. The oars came down, rowing the ship parallel to the cliffs, while he stood on the prow and stared upwards at the welcome sight. Gulls wheeled above him, and dust and rock tumbled into the sea near by as some unseen animal scampered away from the cliff edge, across the sparsely vegetated land beyond.

  Whereabouts he was, along the ragged shore of his country, he had no idea; but that this was his home he was in no doubt at all.

  It was after he had sailed for several hours through the choppy seas which crashed into the sheer black cliffs, always looking for the first possible beaching site, that the wind carried a familiar and terrifying sound to his ears.

  At first it was hard to hear anything above the hollow pounding of the waves, and the noisy creaking and cracking of the ship’s timbers, but then he heard it distinctly and unmistakably – the distant howl of a large and angry wolf!

  ‘Odin’s Axe, no!’ he cried to the biting sea wind, staring upwards through his white-caked eyes to where the dark cliffs cut jagged and stark across the pale-blue sky.

  The ocean rushed and boomed against the cliffs and sea caves near him. The wind took the half-furled sail and slapped it taut. The ship pitched and yawed, bobbing at the mercy of the waves.

  He heard it again, a long and drawn-out cry, the hunting cry of a wolf, piercing, setting Harald’s body alive with tension. The bear in him roared and cowered, fearing its greatest enemy as much as Harald feared the haunter of his dreams.

  He scanned the cliffs and saw nothing but the wheeling gulls and the waving branches of trees balanced precariously on the edge of the precipice.

  ‘Show yourself!’ screamed Harald, sensing that now, at last, the wolf that had pursued him in his nightmares from the shadow land beyond the veil of death, sensing that at last it was here, among the mortals, padding silently across the land he had lived in all his life.

  ‘Show!’ he cried, his voice carrying high on the salt spray wind, and echoing back from the thundering rocks beside him.

  And as if to answer his cry of anguish, above him, staring down, appeared the long grey muzzle of the wolf!

  Even so far away its size appalled Harald – he saw a giant of a beast, fully as horrifying as it had appeared in his dreams, fully as ravenous and slavering, as it regarded the man whom it sought as prey.

  The ship carried on along the base of the cliffs while the great wolf kept track above, running in view, its sleek body as high as a horse, muscles working effortlessly to carry it over the peaks, across the patches of the cliff where the rock had crumbled and fallen into the raging seas below.

  Harald and the wolf watched each other, until the rocks sprang from the water so sharply that the oarsmen moved the long ship further from the cliffs into safer waters and the wolf, giant though it was, was lost from Harald’s sight for the moment.

  Dark clouds rolled across the sky and the choppy seas swelled into a fierce barrage of rolling waves that buffeted the flimsy vessel closer to the rocks. Harald shivered as he gripped the tiller, and cursed loudly as an icy, sleeting autumn rain cut through the air, drenching him, driving the ship so that the dragon prow moved from side to side as if it sought some calmer channel, facing the cliffs at one moment, and a moment later the open seas towards the ice-covered lands of the far north
.

  Through the storm Harald noticed the cliffs dropping away and the jagged rocks no longer visible. He took a chance and swung the great ship inland, hugging closer to the shore where the rain was less strong and the wind was as much for him as against him.

  And again he saw the wolf, watching him with its glowing eyes as it ran above him, keeping him always within sight, always within smell.

  How can I land, he wondered? That beast will tear me apart before I set foot on the rocks!

  And the bear spirit, locked in his mind, howled its agreement. It watched the wolf with its own particular brand of fear, the fear of nature, of a greater predator than itself.

  At last the cliffs dropped inland and the long ship sailed across the mouth of a wide, deep fjord, and, at its edge, watching the Berserker and his ghostly crew vanish north-wards, the wolf stood and cried aloud. Its voice lingered in Harald’s mind long after the sound had ceased to excite his ears. A plaintive cry, as if the wolf were calling to him to return, to face his destiny there and then on the black rock cliffs of this deserted part of the land.

  Harald had recognised the fjord, and knew of the small harbour and scattered settlements that lay three days’ sail along its winding length. He knew too that the wolf would take a full six days to cross the great water chasm, and that was something he valued more, for the moment, than the warmth of a hall, and the stinging pleasure of mulled ale nestling in his empty belly.

  A day’s sail onwards he would find a smaller fjord, and a larger harbour, where long ships had often gathered for a raiding session across the seas. From there, too, the great mountains of the north would be just two weeks’ ride – if he could acquire a horse. And among those mountains he would find the strange warlock, of that he was sure.

  He drew the bronze dirk from his belt and looked at the image of ravines and tall spiky mountains that still resided in the sheen of its blade. As he moved the blade he could see further to the right or left, as if he looked not at a picture but through a window into the deserted and hostile land where the sorcerer lived.

  Someone, he hoped, would recognise the scenery and direct him towards his salvation.

  He sheathed the knife again, but left his hand on it, gaining confidence and encouragement from it, remembering the woman who had given it to him as a gift and the effect she had had on him in their brief and passionate encounter.

  Slowly, as he remembered Deirdre of the Flames he saw another face, another girl, and recognised Elena. A great ache filled his heart as memories of their life together on the hills behind Urlsgarde hold filled his mind.

  The image dissolved into a girl’s face, screaming and agonised, and the ache grew worse as he remembered what he had done to her, what he had allowed Beartooth to do – the vicious rape of her body, the awful assault upon her innocence.

  He was immediately depressed. At the back of his mind his great joy at coming home had been because he could visit Urlsgarde again, and his father and the friends of his boyhood who lived there. But now he remembered, suddenly, horrifyingly (as if the memory had been kept from him for weeks), that if he came anywhere near Urlsgarde he would be killed for what he had done.

  He was in no doubt about this, for his own sword had cut down men and women who had been among his father’s friends, and the payment for their death would be more than any one man could afford – unless he gave his life.

  There would be no triumphant return this time for the young warrior, no drunken bragging, no great tales of his adventures, no proud father to urge him on, the seed of his loins and of his life, the fruit of his dreams, acting now as he himself had acted, twenty years before.

  There would be no welcome for Harald Swiftaxe, Berserker, killer. Only the welcome of the sword, and the eternal curses of those who had seen his frenzy of killing and believed that he was, in soul, what he had become in outer form.

  They could not know otherwise, or of Harald’s desperate quest for release. And they would give him no chance to explain that, when he was calm, when the fury was not with him, when the bear lay quiet and dark, he was as he had always been – the young warrior, in love with life as much as any of his peers.

  He shook the thoughts from his head, blinked back the youthful tears that threatened to run among the glistening salt crystals that caked his sea-worn skin.

  One thing he was sure of: if he could release himself from the spell, from the evil of Odin, then at least he could try and regain the love of his family. He would not risk returning until that time came, but when it came, when the cloud lifted, he would ride back to Urlsgarde. By the power of his love, and his singing lifetaker, he would convince the hold to listen to him, and to understand him.

  And Elena – despite what he had done to her – she too would understand him, and love him again. Sigurd Gotthelm too, if he had survived. It would be as if he had never been away, as if the Berserkers had never stolen him.

  It had to be!

  For the love of Elena, it had to be!

  The long ship cut the turbulent waters of the small fjord that Harald had remembered, making fast headway inland, rocked by stormy winds sweeping off the mountains, but never slowing, never easing the pace that would have crippled even the first-class Viking crew. They rowed through the night, unbothered by the howls of night beasts and the great splashings all around them, though unseen trolls, walking aboard across their jagged domain, cast rocks in the water to try and sink the ship that had dared to cut across their territory during the autumn night.

  At last, towards the following midday, they came within sight of the small harbour village. Harald collapsed backwards in relief, letting the tiller swing free for a moment as he closed his eyes and dreamt of the peacefulness and warmth of the town, and an end to the agony of the crossing.

  He steered the long ship to a mooring against a rough brick quayside, running half on to the sandy substrate of the shore; then left the ship like that, at the mercy of the tides.

  He jumped ashore, walking along the rotting wooden planking of the quay, and came to the sloping road that ran around the huddle of low-roofed houses and huts where the people of the tiny village lived.

  A shutter banged, noisily, pointedly. He looked towards it, noticed a door being quietly pushed to, and a shutter moved as an unseen eye regarded him.

  Smoke, curling lazily from every fire gap, told Harald that everyone was here, everyone was at home, every hall and house was inhabited.

  The sun glistened and gleamed off distant metal implements and Harald turned to regard the movement. Two young farmers, armed and angry, approached him but their approach was slow, lacking certainty. They held drawn blades at the ready, and wore dull leather helmets with corroded metal frames, the helmets of long-dead warriors from the surrounding township.

  Youthful faces below the caps watched him. Shaking hands held the newly forged swords, and Harald sensed their fear as much in the way they held these weapons as in the way they watched him.

  He also realised that his appearance had given him away. There was no hiding the nature of the beast, for the people of the northlands were too familiar with the wild savagery of the Berserks to be unable to discern one, even below the thick caking of salt that clogged the strands of his face and hair, and caked the dark shirt and breeks of the Viking.

  Possibly it was his eyes that gave him away, for the eyes of a Berserker were always more bear than man, and Harald knew well that his appearance was no exception.

  ‘I only need food,’ called Harald as the two young warriors drew near. They stopped as he spoke, glanced at each other, then stared back at the Berserker. ‘Food,’ Harald repeated, as much for the benefit of those who listened and watched as for those who threatened him. ‘And drink, and a horse, and enough to keep me alive for twenty days. This is all I need, and then I’ll be gone. There’s no reason to be afraid.’

  ‘No reason to be afraid of a Berserker?’ chided one of the young men before him. He seemed to be fighting to find brav
ado, as if the very presence of one of the unpredictable bear warriors presented a challenge that could not be refused and, no matter what, there would have to be blood spilled before many minutes were out.

  Harald said, very softly, very deliberately, ‘If you value your life, young dreng, I implore you – back off. I have no desire to fight, but there is a spirit within me that would as soon have your gizzards for food as a sweet haunch of beef.’

  It was the wrong thing to say.

  Two blades came up, firmly held, angrily pointed towards him; two young faces became masks of hate.

  There was fierceness and anger in others besides Berserks, Harald realised too late, and his gentle hint to the boys to escape trouble had been taken as a threat to their manhood.

  Harald allowed himself the luxury of a moment’s regret before he drew his sword from its sheath and waved it before them, allowing them ample opportunity to see and smell the gore and blood that caked and cracked upon its dulled blade.

  And the bear roared and lumbered forward, sweeping aside the human reason of its possessor, so that Harald’s eyes became alive with panic, and his stomach clenched with the human sickness of realisation – realisation of what would happen to these youths at any moment, when all he wanted was a chance to rest, to feed and to be on his way.

  ‘Run you fools!’ he cried desperately. ‘Run while you may!’

  The bear roared.

  Redness rose before his eyes … his skin burned … his mind burned … a whirlpool sucked, and sucked …

  ‘Run …!’ cried the human, the last moment of reason before the overwhelming blood lust of the Berserker swallowed him downwards.

  ‘Die!’ cried the Berserker, and swept towards them, screaming.

  Two blades rose. Two blades skittered away across the flagstones of the rough road. Two screams pierced the afternoon air. Two heads rolled across the road, pumping blood.

  Gulls screeched and dark birds, with bright yellow beaks, flew and wheeled above him, screaming their anger at the peacefulness of the early autumn afternoon’s having been so bitterly disturbed.