The Wolf Sea o-2

by Robert Low

  `Hewers of Men, Feeders of Eagles: pray to Odin and take up your shield and weapons, for we are once more brothers of the blade and this will be a hard dunt of a day, I am thinking.'

  Then Botolf, looking round, asked: 'Where is the Goat Boy?'

  And al-Misti sounded his horns and attacked up the ramp.

  We were supposed to hold them for twenty minutes, no more. We fought them alone for twice that and, in the end, were in a shrinking ring of shields and dog-panting terror and bloody weapons, where those who had bare feet were better balanced than those sliding on the bloody slush in what was left of their boots.

  There was a saga tale for a good skald in it, but like so many it went unsung. I have since tried to tell it, without success.

  I can remember only splinters of it, like images in the shards from a broken mirror-glass — Kleggi, stumbling in circles, complaining that he had lost his shield, the blood arcing from the stump of his arm. The Arab falling back from me, his teeth flying from his mouth like the little tiles of a shattered mosaic.

  And Finn, hacking and slashing and slamming shields until, suddenly, he stopped, gaping at the man he was about to kill, who snarled back at him and swung.

  Finn lost a hank of hair and his ear because of his astonished hesitation, shrieked with the pain of that and the horror of the truth he had just discovered and hacked lumps off the man's shield until, finally, one carved through bone and ringmail and a second stroke took his enemy in the hedgehog of his face.

  Haf Hroaldsson, whom we called Ordigskeggi, Bristle Beard, was dead. One of the Oathsworn we had come to rescue.

  By the time the Masmoudi piled up over the lip of the ramp, scattering the brigands and hunting them down, we were on our knees in the bloody slush, drooling, bleeding, every breath a sob. It was as if I walked underwater then; I could see the pearl-string of bubbles stream from my mouth and feel my lungs burn with bad air. The ground and the sky lurched, changed places. .

  In the whole vault of the sky, only two crows moved, rich, black crosses on a translucent blue that was heavy with wavering heat, so that it seemed I lay on the bed of the ocean, looking up at the surface of the water.

  Widdershins, the crows circled lazily. All crows are left-handed, according to Sighvat. Unless they were ravens. I thought they might be ravens, a sign from Odin.

  I was on my back. . how did that happen?

  `Trader?'

  The sky blotted out, a shape loomed, a silhouette with black streamers of hair in a wind that hissed over the plateau. For a moment, just a heart-ending moment, I thought of Hild crawling over me in the dark, hissing her warnings. But she was long gone, buried in Atil's howe.

  `Trader, are you hurt? Have some water.'

  The shape shrank, wavered, then rematerialised in front of me. A waterskin was shoved at me and I saw it was Kvasir who held it, grinning. He had lost his patch and the dead-white of his eye was like a pearl in the smeared blood of his face. Raw skin flapped loose on his bloody forehead and the iron stink of death was everywhere. Flies growled in search of it.

  `You dropped like a felled tree, Trader, too much heat,' Kvasir said. 'But the fight is out of them now and we have water at last. Here, drink.'

  It was warm and brackish, but the rush of it in my mouth was mead. I struggled up. There were bodies nearby, already thick with flies, and I saw Hlenni Brimill happily fumbling corpses for the purses they carried.

  Eighteen of ours dead, Trader,' Kvasir said, sucking water from the wineskin. 'But those outlaw bastards are cut to pieces and fled. There.'

  He pointed across the sere brown and ochre plain, past the rubbled buildings, into the water-waving heat that made Herod's hanging palace shiver. Figures, trembling and eldritch long in the haze, moved purposefully back and forth.

  Of course. The last refuge, three huge steps of buildings down the prow of Masada, this fetch-haunted, Muspell-hot, gods-cursed mountain in the middle of a burning waste.

  I struggled to my feet and leaned on Kvasir. Under the cotton robes we had put on, his ringmail seared my palm and I knew my own was just as hot. My legs shook.

  `The Goat Boy?'

  He shook his head. 'No sign, Trader. They must all be in that fancy hov.'

  I shook my head to try to clear it, which simply made the pain ring it like a bell. I staggered a little and Kvasir steadied me, thrusting the waterskin into my hands.

  `Drink some more. Not too much, though.'

  I drank, felt better, grinned at him. 'No blood in it, I hope.' He gave a lopsided, wry grin. 'Only Christ-followers care,' he answered, remembering Radoslav's story.

  Blood in the water. Odin's cunning plan to get us to this place.

  The way to the truth of it all was red-dyed in the blood of those we had come to save, most of them killed by a weeping, slashing Finn. The others in the band were not much better; all of them knew now what I had known before — our oath-brothers were the leaders of the brigands, the gelded eaters of the dead.

  I came across Geirmund Solmundarson, who had helped me back to have my ankle seen to after I had done it in chasing Vigfus Quite the Dandy across Novgorod roofs for Einar. I found him bleeding from half-a-dozen wounds and too dying even to speak.

  Then there was Thrain, whom we'd called Fjorsvafnir, Life Taker, after he had won a contest for killing more lice than anyone else, running a brand down the seams of his clothes and popping them in the flame.

  Now the bubbles of his life broke pink and frothing on his lips.

  And Sigurd Heppni, which was a bad joke on him, for he was not Sigurd Lucky at all. From his sprawled corpse I took a familiar stick: Martin's holy spear.

  Them and others, all dead, all the ones we had come to rescue.

  The last stood in the ruins of Herod's topmost tier, backed up to the balcony, the rune-serpent sword a savage grin in one fist, the Goat Boy struggling in the other. Finn, snarling and bleeding, the Godi dripping blood in fat splats of sound, faced him on one side; Botolf, the great byrnie-biter in his massive fist, glared at him on the other.

  Not again. There was a flash of another time, another place, the bird-heart tic of the Goat Boy's throat under a blade, reddened in the torchlight and gripped in Svala's hand.

  Like her, Valgard Skafhogg was not ready to give up. Skafhogg, the chippie. The closest Greeks could get to it was pelekanos, of course. And he was black-hearted now, for sure.

  `Give up the boy,' Finn was yelling, trembling on the edge of a mad rush, like mead in an overfull horn.

  'Give it up, Valgard, you nithing. .'

  I may be cut,' Valgard said, 'but I still have enough balls for this, Horsearse.'

  `We came for you,' howled Finn, almost weeping now. 'We came all the way from Miklagard for you.

  You were Oathsworn. .'

  Oathsworn no more,' Valgard said with a shake of his head. 'The first cut ended us all as men, the second ended us as Odinsmenn. He abandoned us — Einar's doom, right enough. What we have done since to survive would not get us a straight look from the ruined half of Hel's face.'

  His voice was quiet and calm and more chilling than if he had snarled and slavered like a rabid wolf. He was burned dark as a Masmoudi, wore robes and the remains of a turban, was leached of fat and moisture, honed down to bone and desperation. Even his reason was thin, I saw, just as he spotted me.

  `Well, well, young Baldur is here.'

  It was a voice shorn of everything save weariness, but his eyes blazed when he met mine and he twitched the sabre meaningfully; a shaft of light caught the sinuous runes snaking down the blade.

  `Starkad said this blade was yours once, boy,' he said. 'A rune blade. He said you got it from Atil's tomb.'

  Starkad had said a lot, I was thinking, as you do when someone is carving your ribs from your backbone and you are looking for a reason for him to stop. Valgard blinked when I said all this to him, so I knew it was so exactly what had happened that he was wondering if I had been there, seidr-hovering and invisible, to witnes
s it.

  I took it from him,' he replied, challenging, yet wary and uncertain, trying to convince himself that if I had any seidrmagic powers, the sword gave them to me — and now he had it. His fear-sodden hand worked fingers on the hilt, flexing and loosing; his sweat slid into the grooves that told where unimaginable riches lay.

  `Now I will take it from you,' I told him mildly, aware of Botolf sidling further round, trying to work into Valgard's blind spot. The Goat Boy was still, his big round eyes fixed on me, his right hand clutching the Thor amulet round his neck. 'You have put your jarl to a deal of trouble and expense, Valgard Skafhogg, but I kept my Oath.'

  `What?'

  I came for you. I am jarl of the Oathsworn, after all.'

  He smiled then, one as warped as a dry bucket. I jerked my chin at the Goat Boy. 'What now, Valgard?

  Your men are fled and there is a Saracen jarl who wants to ram a stake up your arse.' I hoped I sounded smooth and easy, for the terror of the moment howled in me.

  And you will save me?'

  I am your jarl.'

  His mouth twisted in a spasm of rawness and he could barely get the words out. 'No jarl. Of mine. You nithing boy.' His face was a bruise of madness and his eyes, sunk like wells of despair, now held only the faintest gleam, but his voice was harsh and edge-sharp. 'We have paid the price,' he went on. 'Us. The ones Einar left behind like a sacrifice.'

  Everyone paid the price for Einar,' I countered. 'But that is over. Odin smiles.'

  I heard a crow-rasp laugh, rheum-thick and bitter with loss. Odin smiles? Are you godi also? If so, you know One Eye smiles only when the stink of sacrifice hits his nose.'

  I knew that, of course. I had known it and had not shared it with the others before we fought. All the ones who had broken their Oath so badly had to die — and he the last of them. Finn knew it now and looked frantically from me to him and back.

  I shrugged as languidly as I could manage and rubbed my beard, a gesture I had picked up from Rurik, shipmaster of the Oathsworn before he had died at Sarkel. I know Skafhogg saw it, with a flicker of recognition. They had been friends, the shipmaster and the shipwright, but I saw that things had gone past all friendships.

  Botolf shifted and Valgard moved the sabre edge closer to the Goat Boy's neck and said: 'One more move, Giant Ymir, and I will have the head off this boy. I want to hear blades hitting the stones.'

  Finn slumped wearily and flung the Godi down with a clang of disgust. I saw him look at Valgard and remember that they had been oarmates long before I had joined the Elk. I saw, too, that Valgard did not have the regard for it that Finn had and that Finn knew it, was drained by it so, that he had to hunker down, all strength to stand gone.

  Botolf's byrnie-biter clattered down and Valgard looked at me.

  I dropped my sword and he eased a little, though stayed clenched as a curl on his little hostage. The Goat Boy's face was pale, but his eyes were steady and I cringed for him. To be like this once for our sake was bad enough, but twice. . I vowed then that, if Odin spared him, the boy would never be put at risk again.

  It was a surprise when this little one ran in out of the storm,' Valgard said, caressing the Goat Boy's cheek with fingers from the hand that gripped him close. 'I knew then there were problems — and that he was an answer to them.'

  `Give him up,' Finn managed to wrench out hoarsely.

  Valgard said nothing and his eyes scoured Finn's face with scorn. He would not give up: not he who had done what he did to survive, who could chew on another man's warm liver, or order a blood-eagling on his hated enemy.

  Botolf shifted. He caught my eye. And winked.

  My mouth went dry and I forced my tongue from the roof of it. I knew I had to keep Valgard's fluttering madness focused on me.

  `What will you do with the boy?' I asked, offering extravagant promises to Odin to keep my voice from trembling.

  `Hold him close until promises are given and sherbet drunk,' he said and laughed. 'Oaths sworn, too, maybe.'

  He knew what he was about, for sure. If he drank sherbet from Bilal al-Jamil, it meant he had been accepted as a guest and could not then be killed. If he got us to swear an Odin-oath for the same, he would actually Loki his way out of this.

  But the Arab would offer no chilled cup in return for the life of a skinny Greek boy — Odin would make sure of that, for he wanted the life of Valgard the oath-breaker and not even the Norns would deny him. Not even Allah.

  Botolf leaned and shifted slightly and I saw Valgard's head start to turn towards him, knew Botolf was poised for a desperate leap. Odin settled gold on my brow.

  `You will never manage it, Skafhogg,' I said scornfully. 'You think this scrawny-arsed boy is a good exchange for letting you escape? Do what you will with him, Trimmer. But eat him quick, for it will be the last meal you have.'

  The howl from Valgard had everything in it, from rage to shame and back. He flung back his head and wolfed it all out to the sky — and Botolf hurled himself forward.

  I knew he would never make it. Valgard snarled and cut viciously. That snaking curve of blade should have snicked Botolf's great, stupid head clean off his shoulders; he knew it, too, and was roaring himself into Valholl.

  It was then that the Goat Boy took his hand from his Thor amulet and elbowed Valgard in the groin.

  Afterwards, he said he had felt it hit just where he had thought it would after having seen Inger's naked body being washed: on the length of reed that allowed Valgard to piss.

  It drove up into the soft depth of him, into the bladder. Valgard doubled up and screamed and the cut took Botolf in the left leg, a handsbreadth below the knee. The limb flew off in a lazy curve, slathering blood everywhere, and, even as he toppled like a mast-pine, Botolf's right hand came up and took Valgard by the throat, shook him left, then right, like a dog with a rat. Then he fell, howling and pushing Valgard backwards.

  There was a sharp scream as Valgard hit the balcony and it crumbled like old bread. He went over like a flipped louse, flailing his limbs and with a short bark of sound that could have been laugh or curse, drowned out in the sound of the rune-serpent blade scoring a shrill, grating screech all the way down the support pillar until he hit the cracked paving far below with a wet slap.

  Finn hurled himself at Botolf as the giant sprawled, the pair of them almost spilling over the edge of the balcony. The Goat Boy hurled himself at me and I knelt and swept him up; the pair of us were trembling and I was closer to sobbing than he was.

  I was not afraid this time either, Trader,' he said, shaking so hard he could hardly get the lie between his teeth for chatter.

  I couldn't reply for holding him and watching Finn drag Botolf back from the edge and strap his tunic belt round the bloody ruin of his leg.

  Eventually, slick with the slime of it, he looked up as the blood trickled to a close. He grinned through the red mask of his face as Botolf groaned and told him to get his shoe, just before his eyes rolled into his head and he passed out.

  Finn chuckled, blood outlining his teeth. 'The big idiot will live — but he'll be shorter by a foot after this.'

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