by Robert Low
Brother John didn't like any of this much, but the others glowered at him and he knew the worship of Christ was too new on them to argue. To me, who did not even try to interfere, he gave a hard look and said:
'The Abyss grows darker the longer you stare down into it.'
That was after the defenders tried to give in, which was as soon as the door broke. They were shouting frantically in their gabble, throwing down bows and spears and holding out their hands and clasping them.
The crew were past caring and cut them down for having put them to all this trouble.
`They had courage,' argued Brother John, trying to get me to stop the slaughter, which was stupid since there was no way I could do that and the fact of it made me sick and angry.
A cornered rat has that courage,' I snarled back at him, the thick iron tang of blood clogging my nose, then I went to find what we had come for. The container was where it was supposed to be, under the stone base for a brazier in what had been the monk chief's room, and I grabbed it up, stuffed it inside my tunic and ordered everyone out and away.
We paused only long enough to lay Sumarlidi and the dead, toothless Lambi out with the bloody enemy dead at their feet, then fired the church and scampered into the safety of the darkness.
Another god place burned and more men killed. In the dark, with the damp wind cooling my face, the sickness rose up in me and I boked and spat it out. I felt a gentle hand on my back and, though I wanted no one to see this, had no strength to do anything but retch.
Brother John patted my shoulder and I heard his low voice say, Tacilis descensus Averno.'
The descent to hell is easy.
Fuck him, what did he know? He wasn't the one in the lead.
6
I held him and he felt like a bird, the racking sobs shaking him so that it seemed his thundering heart must burst out of his rib cage. I wanted to hold him tighter, but it was an awkward thing with others looking and I had no words for him; none of us had. So Brother John peeled the Goat Boy off me and took him to the swift-flowing stream to wash the snot and tears away.
The rest of us stood, cold and tired, uneasy in the dawn light, with the tendrils of haar like a witch-woman's hair slithering round the farm and the mulberry trees and the old corpses, still blackened and charred. Crows sat hunched and sour in those trees, rasping out a protest at a meal interrupted.
A fresh meal, on a small corpse. The smallest one in that field of death, dark curls clotted with old blood, the eyes already pecked into dark holes, which still managed to accuse us all. The wound that killed him was a back-to-breast skewer and Halfred tracked the tale of it.
The horsemen had ridden to the silk farm from the town of Lefkara, which meant I had judged Farouk right — he had come straight to the plumes of pyre smoke, found nothing and headed for the village after that. Now he was probably finding more dead and a burned church and we had a start on him, but not much of one. It was good Odin luck for us, since it meant we had missed each other in the dark — but for such luck One Eye takes a high price in sacrifice.
So he took little Vlasios into their path just as they saw what we had done to their friends. Like startled game, the Goat Boy's little brother had probably made a run for it, leaping on those wiry legs, twisting and turning, but no match for horsemen with lances.
They had spitted him, said Hookeye, pointing it out — quietly, so the Goat Boy could not hear — and carried him back to the charred remains of the pyre, stinking and wet from rain. Probably still on the spear-point, Hookeye thought.
And they would be laughing about it in a grim way, I thought to myself, as they tossed the corpse on to the ash, like an offering to their own dead. It came to me that we might well have done something similar, in another place, at another time, and the thought did nothing to help the sick feeling in my belly.
Then they had ridden off, leaving one more small, bewildered little fetch in a clearing, wondering why the world had grown cold and empty and shadowed.
We had found him after a couple of hard hours' travel, moving as swiftly as we could in the dark. My plan had been finely worked, everyone agreed, but the dead boy was a stone thrown in the pool of my deep thinking and not because the Goat Boy was melting to tears over it.
No, it was the little stick in Vlasios's belt, which the Sarakenoi had not even bothered with. The one that said, in badly cut runes: `Starkad. Go west. Dragon.'
It was from Kvasir and I knew what it meant. Starkad had arrived like a pinch of salt in clear water. Now Balantes and everyone else would know they had handed the prize to the wrong wolf and we would have all the Greeks on Cyprus after us, as well as the Sarakenoi and Starkad's men.
As Finn said, with a harsh chuckle, if you measured a jarl by the number of his enemies, then Orm Bear Slayer was mighty indeed. The others had joined in, the fierce laugh of men with steel to their front and fire at their back, showing a lot of teeth but little mirth.
At least Kvasir and the others had had warning, time enough to plan swiftly and send the Goat Boy's brother with the gist of it.
I knew what Dragon meant. On the way here, less than a day from Larnaca and perched bare-arsed over the lee side in friendly conversation while we emptied our bowels, Kvasir had pointed out the headland like a dragon-prow. We had argued whether it looked more like the fine antlered one on the old Fjord Elk, or the snarling serpent on Starkad's stolen drakkar, which had replaced it.
That was where Kvasir was heading, but I did not know if he had one ship or two — or if he would make it at all.
I laid it all out for them, while Brother John brought the scrubbed-faced Goat Boy back. Finn was all for hurtling back the way we had come, to take Starkad on and get the runesword back. No one else looked eager for that, however, and I was cold-sick in my insides at the way my crafted plans had unravelled so completely. I was no Einar.
`What do we do, Orm?' asked Kvasir and I felt a mad moment rise in me, a great storm sea that made me want to agree with Finn, to shriek out that we would take on Starkad and every Greek, get the runesword back, fight back to our ship and then away. .
Instead, I looked at them, one by one, battened down my pride and admitted the truth of it. Now we run, brothers. Now we run.'
We did, a jogging lope that burst the sweat on us, despite the chill. Across the bare slopes we went like startled game, from gully to rock, to stand of trees, heading hard west and south. Eventually, when I called a rest-halt, I could taste the brine on a breeze from the sea on parched lips and sucked it into fiery lungs. There was another village — ahead and west, if I remembered Radoslav's chart — whose name sounded like air being let out of a dead sheep's belly. Paphos, it was called, but I wanted no part of that and planned to come out to the sea short of it by some safe miles.
The men were on one knee, panting, mouths open, tossing a flopping waterskin from one to the other and I saw the Goat Boy sit with his knees at his chin, his dark eyes big and round and fixed on me. I had worried about him keeping up, but that had been foolish — this was the boy's country and he had young legs that had chased all over it since he could toddle.
I grinned and raised a hand to him and he raised one back, though he did not smile. After a moment, he snatched the waterskin deftly up before anyone could stop him and brought it to me. As I drank, he squatted beside me, silent and staring at nothing.
It was a hard thing, what happened to your brother,' I offered, handing him the skin. He stoppered it and sighed.
`My mother-' he began and then stopped. He wanted to be a man, but his lip betrayed him.
`You should go back to her,' I said, clasping one shoulder, but the look he turned on me was suddenly cat-fierce from a streaked face.
I want to be one of you. I will take the Oath. I will fight the infidels.'
Finn overheard and chuckled grimly. 'Join another army, biarki, for this one is leaving, never to return.'
He looked alarmed and I caught the flash of disbelief and then his shoul
ders collapsed.
Every hand is against us,' I pointed out, 'from the Kephale to the General as well as the Sarakenoi. We stole something valuable.'
`That's what we do,' added Hookeye, his voice thick with sarcasm. When I looked at him he looked challengingly back at me. At least, I thought he did, though it was hard to feel challenged when his left eye was seemingly staring over my right shoulder.
The boy was silent and someone called for the waterskin, so he got up and passed it. Brother John slid up to me and whispered: 'To leave the boy behind will be death for him. Balantes will not believe he does not know anything about this prize. Even if he does not, there is Starkad.'
The prize. I had forgotten it, still slung by its strap on my back. Now I took it and had a hard look at the outside. Interested, since this was what had caused all the trouble, the men crept closer and craned to look.
Plain leather, with a carefully fastened cap, which I opened. There was a musky smell and I tipped the contents cautiously into the palm of my hand.
Dried twigs and a leaf, browned at the edges though it had once been brilliant, glossy dark green. With it came some dark little specks, smaller than peas and hard as beads.
Is that it?' demanded Finn huffily. 'Does not scale up well to our runesword, I am thinking.'
`Not much to look at, Trader,' said a voice.
`What is it?' said another.
I knew, even though I had never seen any of it before. The whole thing of it unwrapped like a folded cloak to reveal the pattern. I shrugged to the men, poured the whole lot back in and fastened the leather top.
I had promised them treasure, brought them to a den of wolves where men had died and could not begin to explain what had been found. They wanted treasure, so I gave it to them.
`Pearls,' I said knowingly, ignoring the shame the word flooded me with. 'Special ones.'
That made them nod and smile. Pearls they understood. Pearls could be bartered for a sword with a rune serpent curled on it — Einar would have been proud of me.
But Brother John's eyes narrowed, for he knew I was lying.
I didn't want to tell anyone the truth of it, though — that the collection of leaves and little beads were mulberry leaves and shoots and the eggs, I was thinking, from silkworms. Silk was so precious you had to have permission to buy it. It had been stolen by two daring monks from the strange people who made it in a far-off land and now the church jealously controlled it.
If a high-placed Christ priest and a truculent general were handing what was a church monopoly to the likes of Choniates on the sly, there was more here than simple theft and moneymaking. There was the sharp stink of treachery, the sort where kings slip knives in the ribs of rivals of a dark night, and I had been in Miklagard long enough to know that Roman emperors sat on precarious gifthrones. Small wonder Choniates had handed over a runed sword to Starkad for a task such as this.
Stealing this had been a mistake and a bad one, such a bad one that my balls drew up, tight and scared.
Leo Balantes made no secret of being the man of General Red Boots and Balantes was the one who had whipped up the riots in the Great City last year. If Red Boots was also behind this then the Basileus himself was the target. This was no bargain counter for a runesword. It was a death sentence.
Blood-feuds I knew about, as every Norseman did, but the feuds of the great in Miklagard were another thing entirely. Balantes would snuff us out like pinching a candle if he thought we knew too much — and the only one who could help, the Basileus Autocrator himself, was so far away as to make the sun easier to reach.
Only two winters ago, I thought wearily, my only worry was how much worm was in the keel of our little faering in Bjornshafen. Now I was wrestling with whether the gods were laughing at me for having the pride to become jarl of the Oathsworn and that this, my first serious raid, would be my doom.
Worse than that, I was hiding the truth from the others. I could almost hear Einar laughing as we ran on into a dappled day with trees like sentries on the hills behind us, so that every time I turned to look back, my heart surged, thinking they were horsemen.
But this was bad country for horsemen. I knew that when one of the three we had foundered and we turned him loose, doubling the wounded up on another. The slopes, however, were smoothing down to the sea and, suddenly, Hookeye gave a loud shout and pointed.
There, rolling gently in the swell in a curve of golden beach, was the Fjord Elk and my heart gave a jolt in my ribs.
There was a brief moment of capering and back-slapping, quickly lost as we realised the Volchok wasn't anywhere in sight. That, as Finn gloomily pointed out, meant that the cargo was lost.
Ah,' said Hedin Flayer cheerfully, 'turn the coin over, Finn Horsehead. Perhaps the cargo has been rescued. Perhaps your knarr is sailing still, just out of sight.'
Perhaps. We trotted on, filled with fresh strength and eager to quit the land for the sea. We slithered out of the steep hills and on to a flat stretch leading to the tussocked grass and then the sand. Gulls wheeled, shrieking out their calls, sometimes like the laugh of some mad hag, other times like the cries of a lost child.
Many a gull was the fetch of those drowned and uneasy in the silt-kingdom of Ran, Mother of the Waves, according to Sighvat.
We stumbled across a stubbled field, saw the thread of smoke from a chimney and the shadow that straightened from work, spotted us and sprinted away. We stopped to rest, for even the horses were blowing.
A cock crowed and Sighvat grunted.
`That's bad,' he said.
Finn spat. 'Is there one of your animal signs that is ever a good omen?' he asked.
Sighvat considered it carefully before shrugging. 'Depends,' he said. 'They warn and seldom praise.
Roosters are Odin birds, for they crow to herald the sun, which Odin and his brothers, Vili and Ve, threw into the sky as embers from Muspell. Fjalar is the red cock, who will raise the giants to war at Ragnarok and Gullinkambi the golden one who will wake the gods for that fight. And let's not forget the One with No Name who crows to raise the dead in Helheim on that day.'
`Duly remembered,' muttered Finn. 'Now. .'
`When a cock crows at midnight a fetch is passing and if it crows three times between sunset and midnight it is a death omen,' Sighvat went on mildly. 'Crowing in the day, as now, is often a warning against misfortune. Can you see if it is perched on a gate? If it is, it means tomorrow will have rain.'
Odin's balls,' muttered Finn, rubbing the sweat from his face. 'Remind me only to keep hens.'
Ah, well,' said Sighvat, 'a hen that crows is unlucky, as is one with tail feathers like a rooster. You would do well to kill them at once. And a hen which roosts in the morning foretells a death-'
'Thor's hairy arse!' shouted Finn in annoyance. 'Enough cackle about hens, Sighvat, in the name of all the gods.'
`You'd do well to listen, though,' offered Gardi, pointing behind us. 'Look.'
This time there was no mistaking the shape of horsemen, high on the ridge, picking a careful way down the scrub and scree slope. Once they hit the flat. .
`Run,' said Finn, the sweat pearling his face. 'Run like the wolf son of Loki has its teeth in your breeks.'
We ran, stumbling and cursing. One of the wounded fell off the back of the horse and the other one checked, turned, saw the horsemen fanning out down the slope, riding hard and shrilling out those illa-la-la'
cries. He galloped for it and the fallen man cursed, got up on to his good leg and started hobbling.
No one helped him, for the hooves were drumming harder now There was a familiar bird's wing whirr and the hobbling man screamed and pitched forward in mid-run, an arrow in his lower back.
Finn cursed and whirled. 'Trader.
I knew what he wanted and screamed: 'Form!'
They slithered and skidded to a halt, swept together like a flock of sparrows while the arrows came in again with the sound of knives shearing linen. A man yelped as one whacked his thigh and
he started to drag himself down to the beach.
We slammed shields and faced them, no sound but the sob and rasp of our breath. Arrows hissed and shunked into wood; another man cursed and writhed, the shaft through his ankle.
`Borg,' roared Finn and the men behind swept their shields up so that there was a higher wall, angled back. The men in front, me among them, half crouched. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hookeye splashing through the water to the side of the Elk. His eyes might be squint, but his feet were sure and fast.
`Back,' I said into the gasping, sweating mass. 'We have to move back.'
We were a roofed fort, but only from the front, so had to shuffle, painfully slowly, away from the horsemen, who were sitting nocking arrows and shooting. They seemed content to do that and I saw there were only twenty or thirty of them and none that looked like an Emir — so he had split his forces to look for us.
One staggering Dane, trying hard to reach us, took about six arrows, one after the other, sounding like wet meat thrown at a wall as they hit him. He went down, one hand still clawing sand and stiff grass to try and get to us.
We backed off, while the arrows spat and hissed and slammed into shields. I hoped whoever commanded was too wary to work out that, as long as we were moving, we were not safe behind the raven claws that had done for them last time. Without those claws, we'd be hard put to stand against lance-armed heavy horsemen and arrows at the same time.
Sand slithered beneath our feet, spattered with stiff-leaved grass. Then coarse sand alone and still we moved back, shedding another two bodies, passing two riderless horses.
One of the cavalry horses suddenly reared up and threw the rider and the rest wheeled round and galloped back, just as someone yelled: 'Water.'