The Wolf in the Whale

by Jordanna Max Brodsky

  Ingharr and the others found seals upon the ice. They brought the dark-red slabs of flesh to Freydisbudir, and Muirenn always managed to slice off a raw hunk for me to feed to my brother. The rest they destroyed over fires just as Brandr had always done. The thralls could never dig deep enough in the frozen earth to make a decent turf dwelling. They were forced to build their longhouse from the Vinland trees they’d hoped to sell back in their own land. I could have taught them to build igluit from snow and save their precious wood—but I didn’t want them to get too comfortable.

  Every day, the Sun rose more weakly, dragging herself above the horizon only briefly before collapsing once more. But for once, I welcomed her absence. “When the Great Darkness finally comes,” I told Kiasik, “we’ll make our escape.”

  He always agreed, though I saw the fear in his eyes. He could walk now, but not without panting after a few steps. And though the fresh meat and my careful tending had finally chased some of the pallor from his cheeks, his bloody coughing had only worsened. When I fed the slivers of seal meat to him, I sent a prayer to Ringed Seal, thanking her for the gift and asking that she heal the hunter who had once worn her amulet. But I was no angakkuq any longer; the spirits wouldn’t listen to my pleas.

  “I feel like something inside is ripping apart,” he croaked. “I want to come with you, but I—” A cough tore from his throat. “Please, Omat,” he begged when he could speak again. “Go without me. You’ve waited long enough. I’m not going to get better.”

  I should have listened to Kiasik.

  Instead I refused to give up hope. I watched the sky. I watched my brother. And I hoarded what extra meat and dried fish I could, along with a rope and a patchy seal hide. The Norse guarded their knives too carefully, but I managed to snatch a small throwing ax from one-armed Magnor while he slept. It would have to be enough.

  A dawn arrived without the Sun. Only a single narrow beam of pink pierced the dusky sky. Still, Kiasik could not travel.

  I waited a little longer.

  The Norse around me grew restless and afraid. The nights were long in their own land, but never did the Sun refuse to rise at all. There were at least thirty Greenlanders and thralls crowded into the longhouse—not to mention twenty sheep—and the tension grew as thick as the stench.

  Freydis never spoke of her own worries, but the thread upon her loom snarled beneath unsteady fingers.

  “The Sun will return,” I assured her.

  “I know.” She sounded defensive. “I’ve heard tales of this darkness. In the far reaches of Northway, they say it happens every year.”

  “But hearing about it is different from seeing it yourself.”

  Freydis didn’t reply. She only turned back to her loom, bending close to see the threads in the flickering light of the central fire. Her husband, Thorvard, threw another precious Vinland log into the flames. The Norse had long since run out of the peat they preferred to burn, and their seal oil lamps were too small to warm such large dwellings.

  I put down the ragged spool of thread I’d been spinning and moved to join my milk-brother where he crouched before the fire. “I saw the heralding stars during the false dawn,” I whispered to him. “If we wait any longer, the Sun will rise again; the days will lengthen, and they’ll be able to hunt us down in the light. If we’re going to leave—”

  “I’m ready,” he whispered back.

  I knew he was lying. I could see the way he clasped his bent hands to hide their trembling. But he had always been brave. And we had no choice.

  “Then as soon as they’re all asleep, we leave. Tonight.”

  Muirenn sat at the opposite end of the chamber, pounding the oil from a square of seal blubber. She couldn’t have heard me, yet her head jerked up when I spoke. She turned quickly to Freydis. “This is the last of the seal, mistress. We should ask Ingharr to hunt again.”

  A breath later, Ingharr himself pushed past the flap of seal hide over the entrance, as if summoned by Muirenn’s words. He strode across the longhouse with a gust of cold air following in his wake. “I’m going onto the ice for seals.”

  Freydis didn’t look up. “It’s too dark.”

  Ingharr crossed his meaty arms over his chest. “We can’t wait for the Sun. The Moon is bright enough to hunt by. We’ve already eaten all the seal meat I brought back two days ago. We’re down to our last wheel of cheese. Soon we’ll finish the stockfish. Would you have us starve?”

  “He’s right,” Thorvard ventured. I’d seen how Freydis’s husband always took the largest portions for himself. If the Norse were out of food, he was largely to blame.

  Freydis cast Thorvard an angry glance. “If he can’t see where he’s going, he won’t be able to stay close to the shore.”

  Ingharr’s brows lowered. “Why do you care so much about where I hunt?”

  “The gods sent me a message. They warned us not to venture inland. I told you that.”

  “The gods have said nothing to me.” Whatever patience Ingharr had for the woman had long grown thin. He turned to go.

  Muirenn leaned toward her mistress and whispered something in her ear.

  “Wait!” Freydis stood and hurried toward me. “Take my thrall. She’s from a land like this. She can guide you to the best hunting grounds, even in the dark.” She grabbed my elbow, her fingers biting into my flesh in a silent reminder that I must keep her secret. No one could know that I had warned her to stay close to shore.

  I looked to Muirenn. The old woman had helped us once again. It’d be far easier to escape from a small band of hunters on the sea ice than from an entire camp of Norsemen onshore. “Yes,” I agreed quickly. “And Kiasik is well enough to come. He’s a great hunter among my people and will bring back many seals.”

  I translated for Kiasik, who rose to his feet, making a surprisingly convincing effort to appear strong. Hope surged through me. Once we were upon the ice together, no Norsemen could stop us.

  Ingharr’s laugh was a harsh bark. “I’m no fool, Freydis. If you let these two out together, they’ll be gone the moment I turn around.” He fingered his braided beard. “But I’ll take the woman.”

  Freydis pushed me toward him, and Ingharr seized my shoulders. His next words were to me alone. “She and I have work yet to do.”

  I forced myself to meet his eyes. I’ll go with you, I thought. And I’ll make sure you don’t make it back alive.

  As if reading my thoughts, Ingharr grabbed me by my thrall’s torque, twisting the cord against my throat until I could scarcely breathe. Freydis said nothing to stop him.

  “If you escape from me,” Ingharr warned, “I’ll return and kill your brother.” He raised his voice, addressing every freeman in the longhouse. “Hear me now. If I don’t come back from this hunt, know that this thrall woman is to blame. Swear upon Odin’s eye to kill her skraeling brother in recompense.” The men nodded briefly before returning to their tasks, as if murdering my brother were just another chore for them to perform.

  “Do you understand?” Ingharr hissed in my face. “His life is in your hands.”

  He dropped me and strode away.

  “Omat,” Kiasik asked. “What did he say?”

  “I go to hunt with him. You stay behind. If I try to escape, they’ll kill you.”

  “That shouldn’t stop you from running,” he said solemnly. “You don’t need to save me. No woman would risk herself like this.”

  “Since when was I like any other woman?” I demanded. “Did I not hunt beside you our whole lives? Would a woman have traveled so far to save you? Would she?”

  For once, he didn’t argue.

  “You’ve seen Freydis, the woman who leads these men.” I didn’t say more. My meaning was clear. If Freydis exists, why can’t I?

  “Then use all your skill,” he begged me. “Find prey quickly and come back to me. We can still run tonight.”

  I could only pray he was right.

  Sanna moved unseen beneath the sea ice. I could feel her presence t
railing my footsteps through the liquid ocean far below, my old nemesis following me with renewed vigor. With every step I took, she scattered her children farther from our hunting party.

  Sea Mother, I begged silently. Forgo your vengeance, just for a moment. Send a seal to Ingharr’s spear. He won’t go back until he’s wetted his blade with blood, and I can’t wait much longer to run.

  I led the men steadily south on our fruitless hunt, away from the Land of the Great Whale. We walked through a world of black sky and glowing blue snow, Taqqiq’s bright eye our only light. For days now, he’d coursed overhead in a high, undulating circle, dipping briefly toward the horizon only to rise again.

  Strong Bjarni, with his keen eyesight and wooden bow, had joined us on the hunt. Old Olfun, who seemed to know something of hunting despite his missing eye, trailed after us. Freydis had ordered Snorri to come, too. He stayed close beside me, his slim form my only protection from Ingharr; I could feel the yellow-haired man’s gaze burning into my back, daring me to run.

  Snorri guarded me only on Freydis’s orders, I knew. But the boy’s concern for me seemed genuine, and he spoke with surprising deference, awed by my confidence on the ice. He’d lent me a flimsy, blunt-edged wooden staff. I tested the ice in front of me, careful of the darker patches where the ocean depths showed through. Snorri stepped carefully in my footsteps.

  “How do you know where to go?” he asked breathlessly.

  “We go south. That’s where the wind will blow the ice apart, opening leads where the animals come up to breathe.” If Sanna hasn’t chased them away already.

  “But which way is south? How can you tell when the Moon’s so bright you can barely see the stars?”

  I felt almost like an angakkuq again, teaching others about the world. With the tip of my staff, I pointed briefly at a ridge of blown snow. “You see how the snow ripples lie? The wind blows from the sea, pushing the snow into a line as clear as a finger pointing to the east.” I gestured ahead of us. “So that’s south.”

  Snorri nodded, clearly impressed. I stifled a snort. These Norse thought they knew so much.

  “Woman!” Ingharr’s voice rang across the ice. “I see no seals!”

  “Nor will you, if you speak so loud!” I called back. Snorri choked down a chuckle. The other men shifted uneasily. “Seals have keen hearing. You’re scaring them off.”

  Ingharr stomped toward me. Please, I thought, let the fool fall through the ice. But Ingharr clearly had a spirit guide of his own. Despite his heedless stride, the ice remained firm.

  He grabbed the torque around my throat again. “You forget you’re a thrall,” he hissed. “I have been hunting all my life. If I say there are no seals, there are no seals.” I kept my staff in one hand, barely able to restrain myself from slamming it against his skull.

  He released me with a shove. I slipped backward. “You should be careful,” he growled for my ears alone. “Many accidents happen on the ice.”

  I cannot die here, I thought, pushing myself upright. Not with home in sight.

  A faint blue fog rose in the distance. Frost smoke from an open lead meeting colder air.

  “There—” I pointed. “If there are seals, they’ll be there.”

  We stood upon the ice edge until my wool-covered arms grew numb from cold. Still no seals appeared. Olfun shifted his feet impatiently. Ingharr slapped his arms and legs with his mittened hands to stay warm. I wanted to strike him for his foolishness. The sound only further ensured no seals would come.

  Finally, as Taqqiq hovered just above the mountains, Olfun dared speak.

  “Ingharr, we must go back.” He rubbed the frost from the seamed scar that puckered his eye socket. “There’s no game here, and Freydis warned us—”

  Ingharr held up a hand for silence and pointed a single thick finger toward the horizon. There, barely visible in the moonlit dark, a silhouette thrust from the water in a distant lead, growing larger. Getting closer.

  “A whale,” Snorri whispered, awestruck.

  “A herd of seals,” Ingharr offered confidently.

  Olfun squinted his one gray eye and said nothing.

  Bjarni, the most keen-sighted among us, slowly raised his bow. “No… not either of those, I don’t think.”

  I didn’t need Bjarni to tell me what approached. A man. In a boat. Cold flooded my veins. I’d thought us far enough from my family that we wouldn’t stumble upon Tapsi or Ququk on their hunt. I was wrong.

  “Turn around!” I screamed in my own tongue. “It’s not safe!”

  Ingharr clapped a hand over my mouth, stifling my warning. His angry curses nearly drowned out the faint cry floating toward us over the ice.

  I knew that voice. Not Tapsi. Not Ququk.

  Brandr.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Brandr’s boat drifted into view—a misshapen raft that had once been a sled.

  A paddle waved toward me from the distant lead like a desperately flailing arm. Fast as a hare, I twisted from Ingharr’s grasp and bolted along the ice edge toward Brandr. Holding my skirts above my knees with one hand and my staff with the other, I ran so hard I feared I’d crash through the frozen sea. But for once, the Sea Mother withheld her ire. I could hear Ingharr and the others running after me; only surprise had kept me out of their reach so far.

  The open channel before us was as wide as four spear lengths, but to reach the raft in the distant lead, I’d need to cross it. Nearly impossible for a leaping man, but not for Bjarni’s arrows. Brandr would fall before he even understood the danger.

  I paused only long enough to take a few steps backward and get a running start. My sealskin boots gripped the rough ice, my arms pumped like a raven’s wings—and I jumped.

  All those long summer games of agility and strength served me well. The toes of my boots struck the far edge of the ice; I flailed and stretched and strained. Then I tumbled forward, safe on the other side of the channel.

  Behind me, Ingharr and the others shouted curses, unwilling to make such a leap.

  I kept running. “Turn around!” I shouted toward Brandr.

  My cries only made him paddle harder.

  Suddenly a long pale horn split the water beside his raft, rising from the depths like a spear wielded by Sanna herself. For a moment, I was sure the Sea Mother meant to rip through Brandr’s raft.

  Then another horn appeared, and another.

  With a whistled wail, three narwhals lifted their round, glistening heads above the surface. Rather than attack the raft, they guided it, pushing it swiftly through the water with the points of their spiraled horns.

  I could see Brandr’s face now beneath his dog-fur hood. The familiar sharp plane of his nose, the thin cheeks. His blue eyes glinted like black stones in the moonlight. I skidded to a halt, my toes brushing the steaming edge of the lead, where ice and water met.

  “Hurry, before they make it across,” Brandr looked past me toward Ingharr and his men. “Get on!”

  “No! I can’t leave. You have to—”

  “Get on the raft, Omat!”

  With a final stroke of his oar, the raft struck the ice. Brandr stretched a hand toward me, his eyes pleading, confused, betrayed.

  “Please, Brandr. They’ll kill Kiasik if I leave now,” I begged through sudden tears, clutching my arms around my chest to prevent myself from reaching for him. Brandr’s hand slowly dropped away from mine, his gaze darting between my tear-streaked face and the Norsemen on the other shore.

  The narwhal tusks shot from the water as the small whales surfaced once more. Then, rather than splashing back into the ocean, they behaved as no normal whales would, launching themselves onto the ice before me. One white, one dark, one mottled gray.

  I started back, terrified. The ice groaned beneath their weight.

  The whales rolled onto their sides, their long, twisted horns flailing like the lances of untested hunters. Then, in a flash, I understood.

  Whales who had once been wolves.

  Wolv
es who would cross an ocean to find me.

  The gray narwhal humped awkwardly across the ice, tusk bobbing. “No!” I shouted at White Paw in my own tongue. She was no aarluk, no fierce fanged whale who might fight off her attackers. Narwhals are peaceful, their tusks for show, not battle. “You can’t help me like this!” I reached to push her back into the sea.

  Strong hands grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me away. I struggled, kicking backward.

  “Stop!” Brandr shouted in my ear. I hadn’t seen him leave the raft, but now his arms circled my chest, squeezing tight. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  Too late. An arrow sailed toward us. Brandr ducked just in time, the motion sending us both toppling to the ice.

  “Careful, Bjarni!” I heard Olfun warn. “That’s no skraeling—he’s speaking Norse!”

  “Beware, Norseman!” Ingharr shouted, squinting through the dark. “Leave the thrall to us!”

  The narwhals shimmied forward, forming an arc around us.

  Ingharr let out a whoop of surprise when he saw them. “You’ve led us to rich hunting after all, woman!” he called. “Three narwhal tusks will fetch more gold than a man can spend in a lifetime.” He finally dared to take his own running leap across the channel. He almost didn’t make it. Almost.

  The narwhals whistled in protest as Ingharr sprinted toward us. Their horns, each as long as a full-grown man, pointed toward the approaching Norseman in warning.

  But a whale on land was no more threat than a wolf in the waves.

  “No!” I cried, crawling free of Brandr and rising to my knees. I held out my hands, palms up in surrender. “Take me back, just don’t hurt them.”

  Brandr scrabbled to his feet. “What are you doing?”

  “You can’t save me without killing Kiasik!” I screamed at him. “Stop fighting and go!”

  “Not without you.” A Viking in an Inuk’s hood, he drew his sword and leveled it at Ingharr.

  The hunter froze in place. “Who are you, Norseman?”

  I heard the creak of Bjarni’s bowstring as he shifted his aim from me to Brandr. The faint snap of a loosed arrow.