“Oh, no,” Skeggi said, placing the tips of the pins gently on the brazier. “You’re going to have to be a lot louder than that, Prince.”
Jorn’s screams carried across the waves for quite some time.
NEAR BYGLAND, WEST NORWAY
OCTOBER, AD 996
“We come here for the king!”
Audun swallowed and blinked. They sounded far away, maybe two or three hundred yards. Hoofbeats echoed off the walls. The door was his only exit—straight into the face of whatever was out there. A cold fear gripped him. They knew. He’d said too much, and they knew. They had found him somehow. They were here for him. Audun tried to move, but his feet did not obey. He only just remembered to breathe.
“Well met, strangers,” Fjölnir shouted. “I’m afraid I can’t help you. The king isn’t here.” He sounded like he was smirking.
“Funny,” the other voice said after a while, sounding closer. In the yard. “Well met, old man. We come on behalf of King Olav.”
“And welcome you’ll be,” the old man said. “I am Fjölnir, and as you can see, mine is a humble home. What can I do for you?”
Dreamlike, Audun noticed the feeble autumn light leaking around the shutters covering the window, seeping in between wall boards, dancing around the dust motes. Should fix that before winter, he thought in a daze. Hooves on hard earth shook him out of it. Sharper now. Closer. Two horses? Four? The way the sound bounced off the buildings made it hard to determine. There were many of them, though. Too many. Audun’s chest felt tight, and his heart swelled. The horses were slowing down outside.
“You can give up whatever farmhands you have to the fight for the kingdom in the name of Our Savior Jesus the White Christ,” the voice snapped.
A brief pause. “I wish I could,” Fjölnir said. “But as you see, the time of young men has long passed in this corner of Setr Valley, I’m afraid.” There was a note of regret in his voice.
Men dismounted outside. “That’s a shame,” the voice said. “So you’re the only one here.” It snapped out orders. “Look in the barn. Search the house as well,”
“Do you seek shelter?” There was a cold formality to Fjölnir’s tone now. It was part question, part command, followed by a thump and a groan.
“Fuck your shelter, old man,” the voice snarled. “See if there is anything of use here.” The sound of wood breaking; doors smashed in.
“Over here,” someone else shouted.
Movement outside the walls. Indistinct voices, shouting. Sounds of anger and violence washed over Audun and finally the memory caught hold of him, squeezed him until he almost couldn’t breathe. Stenvik came back in rushes of sound, smell, sight. How he’d felt his body go cold, blacken from the fingertips, how he’d faded away until he was almost gone. How the center of him had felt blue and cold and hard like a fist-size diamond, and the words:
Strong, the living
Drawn to struggle
Weak men’s champions
Live in dying
Ever losing
Soul and spirit
Changers, movers
Starkad’s brothers.
He remembered being dragged back in agony from death, screaming into the disappearing blackness. Tears rolled down his face, caught in his stubble. His breath came in gasps. Snarling, he pummeled his thighs.
“Move!” he spat. “You bastard! Move!”
“Tools!” someone shouted from the yard. “Find some fucking tools!” The voice came closer. “You fucking—” A thump and a groan. And another. “Come on. Get up.” Pause. “Pull him up.” Pause. “You’re lucky that the king says thou shalt not kill—” Thump. “—unless necessary. Fucking—” Thump. Thump. Cough. Spit. “—lucky.” The voice was out of breath. “But it looks like you’ve spent some time making those, so you’re going to watch.”
Something scraped along the earth. Sounds of logs thrown down.
They’d found the statues.
Audun stared at the door. It looked infinitely far away. The walls warped and twisted before his eyes, lengthening in all directions.
“Check the house.”
Time slowed down. Audun watched himself dive to the floor, squeeze his bulk under the bunk in the corner farthest from the door, reach and haul Fjölnir’s traveling case in front of the bed just before there was a wall-shaking crash. Footsteps, then nothing. The case in front of him disappeared up and out of sight with the sound of a man straining; tough leather boots not five inches away from his nose. The smell of horse sweat and wet earth washed over him.
“This better be good,” someone mumbled. The boots turned, and the man walked away, over the smashed door, out into the dusky morning light. “Look at this!” the man shouted.
Audun tried to move, but he couldn’t. His body no longer felt like his own.
“What’s that?”
A crash as the box hit the ground.
“What’s this, old man? Leave the belt. Arngrim, take that hammer. Looks all right. See if you can improve on the looks of those statues.”
The first stroke of metal on wood blended into the second and the third, until all he could hear was one sound of destruction and pain.
Words came later. Shouted words. More pain.
After the horses left, there was silence.
A long while later, the steps creaked.
“You can come out now,” Fjölnir said. “They’re—” He coughed. “They’re gone.”
The rough wooden floor scraped Audun’s elbows as he inched from under the bunk, rose to his feet, and looked at the man in the doorway.
Fjölnir’s right eye was swollen shut and turning a dark shade of purple. His lips were cracked and pink, spit-mixed blood seeping from his gums. He stood in the doorway wheezing, bent at the hip, clutching something in his hand. Audun swallowed and started to speak but fell silent as another series of coughs wracked the old man’s body.
As Audun went to help, the old man shook his head without looking at him, raised his hand, and straightened up as much as he could.
“I was going to give you a good hammer, blacksmith,” he said. “They did not—do not—know what they’re doing, and that will be the end of them.” His face was a grimace of pain, but the left eye was hard and cold. “They did leave you this.” In his outstretched hand was a belt.
Burning with shame, Audun swallowed again. He tried to speak but the old man looked at him, almost kindly, and shook his head. “Take it,” he said.
He touched the belt. It was wide—nearly two inches—and felt supple under his fingers. The leather was thick, but the buckle made him pause. It was woven with what looked to be strings of steel, and the clasp was made of two interlocked hands that were somehow both delicate and oversized. It was a piece of singular craftsmanship. Out of habit, Audun turned it around to look at the back; familiar runes were etched on the flat side. Control and force.
“What is this made of?” he asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Fjölnir said. A shadow of a grin ghosted into his one good eye. “Put it on.” He motioned for him to put the belt on. The movement made him wince and clutch his ribs, but the old man still fixed him with a firm look. “This belt will give you strength, Audun Arngrimsson. It will help you keep the flames at bay. I wish I could say otherwise, but the words she spoke will give you trouble wherever you go. The quicker you embrace it, the better. Stay alive and stay strong.”
The belt fitted perfectly. When the hands clasped with a soft clink, something unlocked inside him. A sudden plunging feeling took his breath away, and he felt . . . alive. In control. Something swelled in his chest, and for a moment he felt like he belonged up among the stars.
The old man looked intently at him. When he saw Audun’s eyes open again, he grimaced. “It fits you well enough. You need to go now, though.” Fjölnir shuffled to one of the beds, still talking. “Those bastards are like to come back at any moment. If you stay here, there’ll be more trouble—it’ll seek you out.
Keep moving.” He rummaged under the bedding until he found what he was looking for. “Here—take these as well,” he said, handing Audun a bundle of clothes. “Your pants smell like horseshit, and your tunic has a hole in it.”
In a daze, Audun accepted. The old man shuffled back and almost pushed him out of the house. “Now go, blacksmith,” he said. “Go and find whatever you need to find. And remember—you know fire. You’ve run a forge. Go.”
“But . . . you’re hurt,” Audun said.
“Yes, I am. But I’ll heal,” Fjölnir said. “I’ll heal faster if you’re not here to cause trouble and eat all my food,” he added with a grin. “Swear you will go.”
“I swear. Thank you,” Audun muttered, but Fjölnir waved him off. He walked backward over the smashed door and out of the house. Turning around, his breath caught.
The doors to the barn and both of the sheds had been broken. Six of the statues, half again the height of a man, had been dragged out into the yard and thoroughly destroyed. Audun bent down and picked up a piece. The detail in the carving showed a full-figured woman with flowing hair. Her fractured face looked back in sadness.
The scraping of wood on wood made him turn his head, just in time to see the remains of the door to the old gray house slot back into place.
A heavy loneliness settled on his shoulders like the yoke on an ox. Without a word, Audun got his bearings and walked toward the south.
When he had been gone for a good while, the door to the house toppled outward and Fjölnir stepped into the yard, leaning on a sturdy walking staff. He put his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistled loudly. Two large dogs came bounding from the forest. The smaller one, a white mastiff, sat down at the old man’s side. The larger, a gray wolfhound, stalked around him. Sniffing at his wounds, the beast growled.
“Shh, Frec. None of that. There is no need to chase. Where they’re going there are plenty of wolves in the woods.” The old man smiled and straightened up, looking an inch or two taller and a decade younger. There was a military air about him now. “No, they’ll get what they deserve,” he said. “Come on. We have work to do.”
He snapped his fingers and strode off into the forest, toward the east. The dogs fell in line behind him.
Alone on a long, winding road heading south along Setr Valley, Audun tried his best not to let his mind wander. The sky above him was clear and blue, with only the occasional wisp of a cloud spread across it. After putting on Fjölnir’s old clothes he looked more like a migrant worker and less like a roving wild man, but he still dreaded meeting the next traveler. So he walked.
Left, right, left, right.
Why had he not been able to charge into the fray and save Fjölnir from the beating?
Left, right, left, right.
Had he . . . died on the wall?
Left, right, left.
What was that thing he could feel? The blackness in his chest?
Right, left.
His heart beat faster. Filled with an urge, a longing to move, Audun started running, away from the farm, away from the shame, away from the questions in his mind.
The sun was past half-set, and darkness crept across the fields in its wake. The shadows had lengthened around him as he ran, and he was already winded and sore when he saw the fire. It was still just a dot, but it was clearly on his path. Breathing hard, Audun realized he could see white vapor coming from his nose and mouth.
It would not be a good night for sleeping rough.
His feet hurt from the running, as did his legs and back. He’d really given himself to it, enjoyed the raw feeling of cold air scraping his lungs, the soft ache in his legs. When he found his stride he’d decided that he was not allowed to stop; then he had started counting things as he went, anything to keep from thinking about everything. Slowing down now, Audun tried to gather his swirling, scattered thoughts. He waited for them to sweep him away, but they didn’t. Instead they were just . . . there, like a fire in a forge: a fire that could be stoked and controlled. Without thinking, his fingers brushed the girdle of his belt. It felt slightly warm to the touch. He pushed the thoughts away and tried to remember how to speak to people.
It was almost dusk when he neared the camp. There were a handful of travelers, men and women. He took this for a good sign and approached, making sure to show himself.
“Well met!” he shouted. His voice felt rusty.
Two of the men rose from the crackling fire and peered out into the darkness. “Well met, stranger,” the shorter one said.
“I seek shelter and a bit of warmth from your fire,” Audun said. “It’s getting cold out there,” he added lamely.
“Step closer and give us a look at you,” the shorter one said. Moving into the outer circle of flickering firelight, he showed his empty palms to the two men.
A brief glance passed between them, and then the shorter one nodded. “Enjoy our fire, stranger. Do you have a name?”
“Audun . . . Fjölnisson,”
“Well met, Audun, son of Fjölnir. I am Breki and this is my brother, Bjorn.”
“Well met, brothers,” Audun said. He could feel the soft touch of the fire on his skin as he came closer.
“Bjorn will sit the first watch. You’ll sit with him and make sure the fire does not go out.”
Audun nodded. Twelve men and women sat around the fire; some acknowledged him with a look, others muttered a greeting, yet others did not seem to care. At the far edge of the light he could see four horses grazing, and behind them he could just make out the shape of two carts.
“Where are you headed?” he asked Bjorn, who turned out to be younger than Audun had thought.
The tall man stroked his chin, plucking at his poor excuse for a beard. “South, I reckon. You?”
“Same.”
The camp lapsed into silence. Breki, older than Bjorn by a good ten years, looked at Audun, then handed him a bite of meat. Audun accepted, wincing in the dark. It felt like a while since he’d last paid his way in the world.
Slowly but surely, the other campers fell asleep. Bjorn caught Audun’s eye and conveyed with hand gestures that he’d be doing the rounds. His lanky frame became almost invisible once he’d moved from his place near the fire. Audun’s thoughts went unbidden to the start of the journey. Where would Ulfar be now? Doing better than him, that was pretty certain. He wondered whether he’d see the mouthy Swede again. A soft whinny brought him back to the fireside. Bjorn’s outline was just visible as a black form against the dark purple sky and its dusting of white dots. The young man was stroking one of the horses and murmuring in its ear.
Audun moved his legs and winced. They’d need stretching. As he rose, the horse’s head snapped to attention. It snorted and took two steps backward.
A sharp, toothy howl cut across the night sky. The horses snorted and stamped. Swearing, Bjorn grabbed the reins of three, but the fourth reared and neighed loudly and took off—but Audun was there in a couple of steps. He grabbed the rough reins and held tight, but the wide-eyed horse was terrified. It reared, bucked, and pulled back—and nothing happened. It was hard to tell who was more surprised, Audun or the horse. He’d braced himself for a struggle to subdue the beast like he’d seen tamers do several times, wearing out panic-stricken horses by hanging on to the reins as if their lives depended on it. This time the tugging of the strong draft horse was no stronger than that of a kitten. Underneath his tunic, Audun could feel the heat emanating from his belt buckle. The horse reared again, but with less conviction. After a couple more tries it gave up and resigned itself to its fate. Meanwhile, Bjorn had steadied the others and was muttering to them gently to calm them, flitting between them like a shadow.
Audun led his runaway over to Bjorn. “Sounded like a wolf, that did,” he muttered to Bjorn.
“Yeah, though ’tis a bit far south, if you ask me,” he replied.
“They have to eat, too, I suppose. Maybe the winter is lean up north.”
“Well,” Bjorn said, “we�
�ll see if they can chase us across the strait.”
Overhead a thin green line curved across the sky and grew into a river of light flowing silently across the vast black expanse.
Audun and Bjorn stayed with the horses, waiting for a second howl that never came. Whatever it had been was gone, hunting elsewhere.
The road under their feet changed from well-traveled highway to trodden path and back as it snaked across fields and over hills. Audun walked at the rear of their modest caravan, beside one of the carts. In front of him, Bjorn shuffled alongside the other cart with the economy of a born traveler. Occasionally they passed under the wooden kings of autumn with their golden crowns and torches frozen in midflame. Mostly, though, they walked, face forward, one foot in front of the other, existing in a constant state of slow movement. Bjorn and Breki proved pleasant enough, but the rest of the party kept communication down to grunts and nods. From the glances they shot him, Audun could tell that the decision to invite him along might not have been approved by everyone.
He couldn’t care less.
After the first night, he woke up feeling ill, but he’d ignored it and volunteered to look after the horses. In the past he’d taken the animals for granted; they were just there, they served a purpose, and someone else made sure they didn’t die. He’d shoed a few but never gone out of his way after that kind of trade.
Now they were his best bet for silent company.
It was also quite reassuring to watch someone who knew what he was doing, and Audun found himself trailing Bjorn, observing him work around the animals. During the first couple of days, he had started learning the order in which to groom them, when to brush or dust them down, how hard to apply the comb, how to pitch his voice when they were skittish. It was something to do, and it kept him from thinking too much.
The cart ahead of him slowed. “Look there,” Bjorn said.
“What?” Audun said.
“The Otra.”
Audun pulled gently on the reins, and the horses stopped. He walked past them and to Bjorn’s side. “What do you—? Oh.”
Blood Will Follow Page 8