A Gathering of Ravens

by Scott Oden

  Grimnir turned to her; from under the tangle of his locks, slitted eyes gleamed with blood-mad fury. He clenched his jaw, muscles writhing as his teeth ground together. Whitening knuckles cracked around the haft of his seax. “Then I will gut this Bródir, carve the head off Sigurðr, split your brother from crown to crotch, and tear your wretched son’s spine out if it gets me a step closer to my brother’s bastard! By Ymir, I will rip those walls down with my bare hands and kill every soft-bellied fool I find!”

  “Harm my son,” Kormlada replied, her voice deadly quiet, “and I will sing the song of your doom, fomórach.”

  Grimnir tsked. “My doom was written by one far greater than you, witchling. But, if you would save your brat, make sure Bjarki leads that rabble.”

  “Impossible! His mind is like iron, once it’s set to a task. How—?”

  “Iron? Don’t be daft! That idiot’s mind is as weak as any other. Are you not the Witch of Dubhlinn? Sing his doom, little bird, as you would sing mine. Use your precious art to lure him onto the field. I will do the rest. Or would you rather me face your son?”

  And like a bolt from the heavens, the realization struck Kormlada that her whole world had changed with the fomórach’s simple revelation. She was no longer one of Half-Dane’s pawns, constrained from fear to play her part. She was the queen; the board was hers to command.

  Grimnir chuckled as a predatory gleam kindled in her dark eyes. “Yes,” he hissed. “Now you understand.”

  “He claims to know the will of Odin,” she said. “The omens say the battle needs must take place two days hence, on the morning of the day the Christians celebrate their god’s crucifixion. But Brian is devout. He will not take the field. He means to lay siege to us, as he’s done in the past.”

  “That day will be as good as any. You’ll make sure that wretch leads Dubhlinn’s forces?”

  “I will,” Kormlada replied, with conviction.

  “Then the hymn-singers’ king will be there to face him. I will make sure of that.” Grimnir raised a hand; with the tip of his seax, he gouged a shallow furrow in the ball of his callused thumb. Black blood welled and ran. Kormlada grimaced. The thought of mingling her blood with that of a monster disgusted her, but nevertheless she extended her own hand to receive a similar cut.

  Quick as a snake, Grimnir snatched the witch up by the throat, his blood joining with the blood oozing from the thin slice on the side of her neck. “Look here, Sly One, Father Loki! Bear witness, O Ymir, sire of giants and lord of the frost! Let this blood seal our pact!”

  In answer, a howling gale blew down from the north. Trees creaked below Carraig Dubh; on that naked height, there was no shelter. It struck the pair of them like a fist, threatening to rip them off their feet. Its chill was like the chill of a glacier, and it stank of burning pitch and spilled blood. On it Kormlada heard the clash of steel and the berserk laughter of the úlfhéðnar; as the sound drifted away into the night, the wind receded until its fierce bluster was once again the freshening breeze off the sea. “It is witnessed,” Grimnir said, releasing her. “Betray me, little bird, and there will be no branch high enough for you to hide.”

  “See you hold to your end of this pact, fomórach,” she replied. And without another word, the Witch of Dubhlinn turned and walked away. She held out an arm, and down from the darkness fluttered the giant raven, Cruach. Alighting upon her proffered limb, the bird gave forth an eerie whistle; by the time she reached the crumbling edge of the precipice, a whirlwind of shrieking birds descended like a cloud of darkness and carried Kormlada off into the night.

  29

  Grimnir stalked to the edge of Carraig Dubh, where the breeze stirred his lank hair; he expanded his chest, nostrils flaring as he drank in the tang of salt spume that drove in off the sea. It tasted of blood. Nights such as these were the parchment on which the gods wrote their prophecies of doom. The stars wheeling overhead were the ink, and in their gleaming and chaotic patterns the wise could read harbingers of the days to come, warnings against the fickle nature of the Fates.

  Even as men drew round for the coming strife, Grimnir could sense a gathering of another sort at the edges of mortal perception. The Great Wolf strained at his fetters, drawn by his oath; the Serpent twisted and writhed. War drums throbbed like a beating heart, calling the restless spirits of the kaunar to the fences of Miðgarðr to bear witness. Ghostly eyes gleamed from the shadows as Grimnir felt the scrutiny of his people. Among them, he recognized the presence of Gífr, who had fostered him like a son; of Hrungnir, called Grendel by his foes, whose foolish vanity had set this game in motion; of their mother, Skríkja, who was as fell-handed as any warrior. And, looming from the darkness, the savage one-eyed figure of Bálegyr, mightiest of the Nine Fathers of the kaunar.

  “I want nothing from you,” he said, peering over the rim of Carraig Dubh. “Faugh! What could you give me that I couldn’t earn half again as well with the edge of a blade?” Far below, the ruddy lights of Dubhlinn glimmered through the canopy of trees; beneath the sough and sigh of the sea wind, he heard faint snatches of ale song. “I am the last of our people. After me, the blood of our kind is at an end.” Grimnir looked up at the spectral shapes, their fanged grins matching his own. “But if this clamor and shield-breaking sets me among you—if the Doom of Odin falls at long last—then I swear to you, my kinsmen, I will make of it a death that will echo through the ages!”

  30

  The woman who emerged from the raven-borne tempest and onto the flat, dark roof of Cuarán’s Tower was not the cold and composed Witch of Dubhlinn, but rather a shrieking wretch. Disheveled, naked from the waist up with her gown half torn from her, Kormlada appeared on her knees, rocking in terror. She bled from nose and mouth; long scratches scored her cheeks, her arms, and her pale bosom. The silent Norsemen who waited with leveled spears knew all too well that they looked upon the victim of a savage rape. A pair of them stepped back, allowing Bjarki Half-Dane to enter their circle, with Draugen ever in his shadow.

  Bjarki clicked his teeth. “I didn’t expect that.”

  Hearing his voice, Kormlada launched herself at him; she screamed mindless imprecations, invoking gods best left unnamed on a night when blood stirred upon the wind. Draugen caught her before she could lay hands upon him; he seized her by the flailing wrists and whispered to her, his deep voice calm and soothing. Slowly, Kormlada stopped struggling until finally she hung like a limp doll from the arm that encircled her.

  Bjarki stepped closer and took her chin between thumb and forefinger, raising her eyes to meet his. “Your errand failed, I gather.”

  “Bring down the mountain,” she hissed, bloody froth flying from her bruised lips. “Marshal your art and unleash it on that bastard’s head! Rip the bones from the earth and grind Carraig Dubh to dust!”

  Bjarki laughed. “Use an axe to kill a fly? I think not. No, I’ll find another way to catch the snuffler. This”—he waved at the spears—“this was simply a throw of the dice.” He made to turn, stopped, and looked askance at her. “A word of warning: scour your womb clean, for if anything he put in there takes root, I will kill it and you, as well. Daughter of kings be damned! I’ll not have some half-breed maggot underfoot!”

  Kormlada said nothing, for the scathing look she gave him spoke all that was necessary. “Loose me,” she muttered to Draugen. He hesitated, concern furrowing his brow. She pushed him away. “Get your filthy hands off me! Damn you! Damn all of you!”

  Draugen let go of her; Kormlada stumbled and collapsed back to her knees, spasms and sobs racking her thin shoulders. Draugen gestured for the others to leave, and then backed away from her. “Your concern is touching,” Bjarki said with a derisive snort. To Kormlada, he added, “Pull yourself together. We have guests, and they’re going to want to see the prize they mean to fight for.”

  Half-Dane whirled and left the rooftop; Draugen lingered a moment, and then he, too, was gone. After a few minutes, Kormlada stood, whole and unscathed, as cold and compo
sed as when she left Carraig Dubh; the glamour she had worn remained on the stones, sobbing and cursing in pale imitation of her. Disdain for it curled her lips; with an arcane gesture, the broken, disheveled figure dissolved into a mist that the breeze snatched into tattered shreds. Kormlada’s eyes narrowed to slits of baleful black ice. “Artless fool. Gulled by the simplest enchantment.”

  Cruach joined her, and together they descended into the heart of Cuarán’s Tower.

  Raucous laughter echoed up from below, from the great room where the kings held court. Like a wraith, Kormlada padded down the steps and across her chambers to the gallery; darkness afforded her the opportunity to observe the drunken scene playing out below. It was certainly a notable gathering of rogues: Bródir and Sigurðr and those men of rank among their crews roared and drank alongside the Dubhlinn Norse, led by her son, Sitric—Olaf Cuarán’s son was no slouch among the cups. At another broad board, she spotted her brother, Maelmorda, plowing one of her serving women while Othna the Black and the noble captains of Leinster sat by and hollered encouragement. A surreptitious cheer went up as Bjarki joined the throng, with Draugen ever close at hand. Sigurðr filled their fists with horns of foaming ale and exhorted the pair to catch up with their hosts. Among the Manx, a fight erupted, but not even drawn steel and spurting blood could put a damper on their debauchery.

  Confident she would not be disturbed, Kormlada withdrew from the gallery. She barred the door to her chambers. Cruach watched her from his accustomed perch, head cocked, eyes glittering in the wan light. Kormlada steepled her fingers. A question hung in the incense-laden air: how? “How do I make him change his plan and take charge of the battle?”

  Cruach ruffled his feathers.

  Strong is the hauberk | of contempt

  But it is not | without flaw.

  A crease there is | in his foul breast,

  Cousin to conceit, | arrogant pride.

  “His greatest weakness.” Kormlada nodded. She could see the wisdom in that. From a chest against the wall, near her brocaded divan, she drew forth a triangular cláirseach, the small harp favored by her people. Of willow and oak was its sound box, and its graceful neck was carved and inlaid with bone; it bore twenty-nine strings of spun silver wire, with a thirtieth string wrought of black iron that had fallen from the sky. Kormlada sat in a straight-backed chair and teased out an eerie melody with her fingertips. “His pride,” she said. “And he is a proud creature. Proud of his deceit, proud of his lies, proud to claim what is not his portion to claim.” Her eyes crinkled as a subtle theme emerged from the melody; the soft sounds snared the incense smoke, weaving it into disembodied figures that danced and writhed …

  And, with a smile of unrivaled malice, the Witch of Dubhlinn began to sing.

  31

  Dawn broke over Irish encampment, and beneath a bloodred sky the Gaels and their allies shook themselves and came awake. A haze hung low over the valley of the River Liffey, the mingled reek of campfires and burned-out huts and the smoldering pyres of the enemy dead; kicked from their beds, still-yawning boys staggered out to fetch water upriver while older warriors prepared to break their fast on oatcakes and gruel and pork left from the night before. Their chiefs went among them with word that Prince Murrough meant to lead a war band across the Liffey.

  “Aye,” a captain of the Galloglas said as he gnawed on a scrap of boiled bacon, “Finegall and Howth, that’s where we’re headed, lads. Give the bloody Danes a taste of their own vinegar, eh?” The men who overheard nodded with grim purpose. Whetstones came out, and the sound they made as the warriors tended the edges of axe, spear, and sword was like the susurration of a predator.

  The rasp of stone on steel drifted among the tents, as distinct as a war cry. It echoed among the mossy stones of the hilltop monastery, sending shivers down the spines of the young monks who prayed at the Cross of Kincora. The sound intruded even into the king’s pavilion, where Brian mac Cennétig knelt on a prayer bench in silent contemplation. He stirred at the sound of men preparing for war; glancing up, his eyes found his graceful Dalcassian axe where his steward had left it—hanging by its leather wrist thong from his cloak tree. Seeing that axe, hearing the slish of the whetstone, smelling the smoke … all of it reminded the king of his long-ago youth. He pined for the days when it was he, and not Murrough or his second son, Donnchad, who led raids into enemy lands; it reminded him of a time when his wine cup was full and sweet, before age and infirmity had left him with nothing but the bitter lees.

  Brian shook his head. “A maudlin old fool,” he muttered. His limbs creaked as he rose up off the prayer bench and called for his steward. It was Ragnall of Corcaigh who answered the king’s summons, clad still in the tunic and trousers he’d worn the night before. Brian raised an eyebrow.

  “Still serving your penance among the poor who follow us, eh?”

  “I have much to atone for, sire,” Ragnall said. “And no one has ever gone astray by following the Lord’s example.”

  Ten years Brian’s junior, Ragnall had lived more lives than most men could count—by turns a reaver, a mystic, a merchant, a thief, and a slave. A score of years earlier, in an act of charity, Brian had purchased Ragnall’s freedom from a jarl of Corcaigh and in return had earned a ferocious partisan.

  The king sat on his divan. Stiff fingers massaged the muscle of his thigh where a spear had pierced him to the bone. Though nobly won, this and a dozen other old wounds left him feeling more like a cripple than a king. Brian stirred. “Who has Murrough left on watch?”

  “The Uí Ruairc, sire, as you commanded. They watch the river and the road to Dubhlinn,” Ragnall replied. “Old Domnall mac Eimen and a few of his Scots watch the western road from Dolcan’s Meadow.”

  The king raised an eyebrow. “On guard against betrayal from Malachy?”

  “Your son has a devious mind, sire.” Ragnall shrugged. “And in that the acorn is true to the tree. Murrough fears for your safety, since Malachy refused his offer to lead the raid on Howth.”

  “Age has made the old trees of Ériu overly suspicious and sleepy,” Brian said. “A dozen years ago I’d have Malachy’s head on a spike for the insult he pays me. Now…” The king sighed. “Well, no matter. Ready my horse. I’ll go speak with that cantankerous old bastard myself.”

  “It will be done, sire.” Ragnall bowed and turned to leave; he relayed the king’s orders, and then paused at the threshold of the pavilion. Outside, a haze of gold-tinged smoke hung over the Irish encampment, and dew made the grass of Saint Maighneann’s monastery look like a jewel-strewn carpet. “I heard something, last night, sire. A tale told to me by a young woman I found out among the camp followers. An extraordinary story, really.”

  Brian rose and hobbled to Ragnall’s side, where he availed himself of his steward’s knotty arm. Together, they stepped out into the bright morning. “‘Extraordinary,’ eh? You don’t use such a word lightly, my old friend.”

  “No, sire,” Ragnall said. “Nor is it my habit to beg a favor…”

  “You want me to hear this woman’s story?”

  “I … I think you must, sire.”

  Down the slope, where the muster for Howth had taken place an hour earlier, a knot of Gaels stood round: mailed Dalcassians who served as his guard, courtiers from kith and clan, and cassocked priests, all drawn by the king’s appearance—they worried for his health, and were troubled by his growing infirmity. A young page brought the king’s magnificent white stallion; Ragnall helped him into the saddle.

  “There is eerie music on the wind, sire,” the old Norseman murmured. “A song of doom that calls down the grim daughters of Odin from the North.”

  Brian frowned. “For whom do they ride?”

  But Ragnall could not say.

  The high king of Ériu leaned down. “Bring this woman to me upon my return. Any tale that causes you to recall your heathen ways, old friend, is an extraordinary tale, indeed.”

  Harness rattled and rustled as the Gaels dispersed
after their king, who rode west to Dolcan’s Meadow. Soon, only Ragnall remained. And the taciturn Northman, who was once a reaver, a mystic, a merchant, a thief, and a slave, scowled at the sky …

  32

  Sunlight cast a cheerful glow over the wreckage of Dubhlinn’s throne room. To Draugen, roused from his drunken stupor by the importuning of a servant, the room looked like a debauched battlefield; bodies in various stages of undress sprawled amid a rubble of splintered tables and overturned benches, with Gael and Gall twisted together in a nigh unbroken carpet of sweat-stinking flesh. Draugen coughed. He leaned forward and spat into a puddle of spilled ale mixed with vomit and blood. Shards of broken crockery crunched underfoot. Before him stood a young man with a wispy chestnut beard and tattooed cheeks, fresh blood soaking the front of his long white tunic. He glanced about nervously.

  Draugen tried to focus on him with his one good eye. He recognized the lad as the priest Ágautr’s son. “What did you say?”

  “Lord Bjarki?” the youth stuttered. “The omens … they … he must come! Quick!”

  Draugen groaned as he clambered to his feet; though he had been blind stinking drunk, somehow the sullen Dane had had the presence of mind to drag a divan from an adjacent room and defend it from this lot. One of his axes lay on the damp flagstones; the other was wedged blade-deep in the skull of a dead Norseman. “Boy,” he muttered, “there’s nothing quick about this morning. Wait here.”

  Clutching at his back, Draugen none-too-carefully picked his way across the room to the royal dais where Bjarki lay draped across Silken-beard’s throne, a bent copper candelabra perched on his brow like a crown. Snores ripped from hairy bellies; men groaned and cursed, coughed and retched. A woman squealed, reminding Draugen that Maelmorda had proven his worth beyond reckoning—though as a pimp rather than a king—when he summoned all the drab-wives, harlots, and two-copper strumpets he knew from the stews of Dubhlinn. And that was only after the reavers had finished plowing every last slave under Sitric’s roof.