Somewhere to starboard, they heard a sucking and smacking sound, something huge and black broached the sea and waters ran monstrously off its flanks.
"The Snake!" yelled someone out of the fog. "The Midhgardh Snake!"
"A whale," bawled Harald. "A whale, God damn you for a sniveling coward!"
"We're none of us craven," said Thjodholf quietly. "And yet are we mad? Half our provisions are eaten up, and we had strong favoring winds when we left. If we must row back, there'll be hunger and thirst aboard ere we win to land."
Harald slumped on a bench. The fog thickened. Men cried out across the noise of moving mountains, oars splashed, and the ships drew close for comfort.
Gunnar tugged at Eystein's sleeve. "I've seen many fogs," he whispered, "but never one like to this. What are those shapes in it?"
"Thicker banks. Not ghosts, but only thicker patches." Eystein's tone sounded unsure. He could not take his eyes from one gray shadow; it was like a troll crouched to spring on him.
Louder rolled the thunders, as if marching down on them.
Harald's lips opened. If there was to be no wind, then down mast and out oars. But he closed his mouth again.
The fog gathered, smoking in the hull and dripping from the cordage. He heard the iceberg groan, was it calving? The whale threshed the sea, somewhere out in sightlessness.
Blind, he thought, blind and alone, three little chips of wood huddled under the cliffs of Giant Land.
Gunnar squatted down by Eystein. "I thought I saw a boat yonder," he muttered.
"There are none save ours," the sheriff told him thinly.
"No man's craft, nay . . . but him the drow sails far. In half a boat, with his bones shining and seaweed hanging from them, and those what see him is dead men ere morning."
"Be still," snapped Eystein. "Were all the men who ever drowned to come against us, I'd stand by the king."
A whisper went down the benches, and Eystein wished he had not spoken. He himself thought he could almost see the unhallowed corpse clambering over the side. Water rushed between the barnacled ribs, weed grew on the naked skull, the flesh was puffed and gray and eaten ragged by fish. An eel wriggled where his heart had been, and the eyes were a dreadful hollowness.
A breath of deeper cold flowed from the larboard. Harald could just make out the shimmering flanks of the iceberg, it was drifting toward them. Loud and hoarse, the floes coughed in the north, shifting and grinding.
Even Thor had gone home beaten when he fared hither.
Harald's eyes sought his chest. There lay rusting sword and ax and mail, wrapped in the raven flag. He had thought to plant Landwaster on the shores of Hyperborea. But there was only the sea, and the fog, and the ice, and the cold.
Perhaps that was all which lay north of him. The chill struck to his heart. Perhaps it was only eternal winter, roaring bergs and whistling winds across an emptiness of snow. He could leave his bones here, and Norway would crumble behind him.
And yet. . .
Jotunheim the gloomy, or land of youth and springtime and all bright hopes, or the great curve of the world across to the fabled lands of the East, who knew? What did any man know? It had been his hope to come back with a tale that would lift men's souls, but he lay freezing and becalmed while the ice bellowed its laughter.
Had it not been for his war with Svein, had he taken Denmark as was his right and been king of the North, he could have sailed with a hundred ships and a year's provisions. Always it was Svein, Svein the supple, Svein the crafty, Svein with the spider's patience, who lay between him and his longing. Satan snatch Svein Estridhsson down to hell!
The thunders crashed and banged; it was as if he heard a voice in them, the grim chanting of Fenja and Menja as they turned the quern of the sea. Here was the home of winter, death and despair, sunlessness and howling winds, glaciers spilling south to grind down mountains and all the hopes of men. Here lay the wreck of the world. It was too great for him, he had dared too much.
He lifted his head. Rime frost crusted his beard, and his cheeks were numb. The huge hollow booming of the ice, or the quern, or the waters pouring down to foam among the nether stars, rolled in his skull.
"God's teeth," he whispered, "you've beaten me, but it will not be forever. Someday men of my blood will come back."
There was a sudden rage in his breast. He wanted to kill, he wanted his banner to fly over burning homes and wasted fields, he wanted to cut Svein Estridhsson down like a dog and leave him for ravens to eat. This journey had ended in nothing, it would scarce make a tale. No skalds would weave it in verse, no saga would carry its remembrance; the most he could hope for was a few parched lines in some monkish chronicle. The taste of failure was acrid in his mouth, and he wanted to wipe it out with blood.
He rose. Men's eyes turned frightened to his tall form, they crowded toward him. He wondered if an order to go further would bring their swords out against him.
"We've tried," he said without tone. "You've done bravely, lads, and I shall not forget those who came with me on this. But now it seems best we return home."
TLV - 02 - The Road of the Sea Horse Page 20