by Robert Low
‘The spear,’ Martin breathed reverently. ‘The spear …’ He couldn’t say anything else, just sat with his hands clasped and prayed.
‘That?’ queried Ketil Crow. ‘There’s only a shaft.’
‘It is – was – a Roman spear,’ Martin said, his voice filled with awe, then he bowed his head and actually sobbed. ‘But the pagan devils have removed the long metal point, steeped in the blood of Christ. May God punish them all.’
Ketil Crow, with a scornful look at the weeping monk, stepped forward, making to pluck the spear-shaft from its ledge. Illugi Godi’s voice was booming loud when he roared: ‘Stay!’ He pointed to the rune line. ‘A runespell. A new one. A new runespell.’
That stunned us all. Valknut dropped to his knees and bowed his head at the enormity of it.
There were few runespells. Odin himself, who had hung nine days on the World Tree, had only ever learned eighteen, as Illugi now reminded us.
‘And had a spear thrust into his side, too,’ Pinleg growled pointedly to Martin. ‘But at least he got Knowledge out of it.’
‘Was it?’ interrupted Valknut. ‘I thought it was Wisdom.’
‘Perhaps the pair of you need to hang on the same tree,’ Illugi Godi said wryly. ‘That way one of you would have the wisdom or knowledge to shut up.’
‘It’s all pagan nonsense,’ Martin declared.
‘Take your prize, then,’ Einar offered. ‘Surely some pagan nonsense is no danger to you, under the protection of your god? After all, didn’t your Bishop Poppo wear a red-hot iron glove and come to no harm?’
Martin licked his lips, looked as if he would try it, then settled back like a sullen dog.
Ketil Crow, shaken at his narrow escape – the runespell might have cursed him, or worse – wiped his dry mouth with the back of one hand. Unless you know what you are doing, you walk warily round a runespell, neither speaking it aloud nor laying a hand on it.
‘There’s no rust on that spear-shaft,’ Valknut noted and I blinked, realising only now what the strange Otherness had been. No rust. Or dust. Or cobwebs. Everything looked as if it had been made the day before.
There was a general backing away. I saw Hild stagger, heard her mutter, moved closer and put one arm round her shoulders. She was cold, but sweating and swaying wildly, like a mast in a high wind.
‘So what happened?’ demanded Ketil Crow. ‘Did they forge a sword out of bits of an old spear? Is that the right of it?’
‘Essentially,’ muttered Illugi Godi, leaning forward to study the runes and speaking absently, his voice sounding like a man speaking underwater. ‘It was written here by someone … who knew … how to do it well. For the smith to copy on to the sword he was forging.’
Ketil Crow shrugged. ‘I can’t think that you would get much of a sword out of some old spearhead,’ he scoffed and Illugi peered briefly at him.
‘Depends on the spearhead. With the blood of a god on it …’
He left the rest unsaid, but Ketil Crow had it terrier-gripped and would not let go. ‘Not one of our gods.’
‘A god is a god,’ Illugi remarked. ‘Ours are more powerful, obviously …’
Martin’s snort stopped Illugi, but Ketil Crow wanted no theological debate. He kicked the metal forge moodily, for he had wanted lots more – treasure, swords, all the stuff of sagas. ‘I still don’t see that a sword made from an old spear is much of a weapon.’
‘Perhaps you should look at the anvil,’ said Einar laconically, ‘where they tested it.’
That great cut across the anvil, where the smith had tested the edge of his blade, made Ketil Crow click his teeth sharply together. Everyone craned to see and Valknut gave a low whistle of appreciation.
‘Deep. Through mail, a cut like that. And helmet-steel, maybe more. Solid iron, that anvil.’ He turned and nudged Ketil Crow. ‘Some spearhead. Some sword.’
Ketil Crow scowled, but it was half-hearted and the old, avaricious glow was back in his eyes.
‘What’s this?’ asked a voice and everyone turned, thrusting torches. The man – a greybearded veteran called Ogmund Wryneck because of a head-jerking tic he had – stood looking up another shaft, behind the barrels. The wooden rungs of a ladder led upwards.
‘Well spotted, old eye,’ Einar said, clapping him on the shoulder. He stepped on the ladder, moved up one rung – and it fell apart with a puff of rotting wood.
‘Well, that’s that,’ he said, then looked at me. ‘A strong lad, bracing himself, could work himself up that shaft with a rope if he had a mind.’
‘He could,’ I answered bitterly. ‘When you find one, ask him.’
Illugi Godi, impatiently grabbing the nearest torch, was almost nose to rock now, poring over the runes and muttering, but careful not to touch. But he was not so engrossed that he could not try to grasp more. He turned to me, his eyes wild.
‘Yes, yes, you must. There might be another runespell. Think of it! Another spell.’
‘Or a sword,’ added Ketil Crow enticingly.
‘Or some of Atil’s treasure,’ said Einar. The rest of the faces round me glowed with the greed of it and their eyes burned on me.
Fuck your runes, I wanted to say. Fuck your magic swords. Fuck you, too, godi. You haul your holy arse up the shaft if you feel so strongly about it.
Yet, at the same time, I was taking the offered rope, coiling it round my waist, looping the torch round my neck again and heaving myself into the shaft.
In the end it was an easy climb. The rungs broke into dust, but there were rusted metal sockets for them and they stayed intact for the most part, so it was simple. At the top, I lit the torch and looked around.
There was a collapsed shelf and more barrels, whose splayed staves spilled the contents out. There was a chest which looked interesting, but only because I tried to move it and knew it was heavy and perfect as an anchor for the rope.
I slung it down, told them that the room was too small for everyone and then turned back to the other thing I had spotted. The door.
It was half open, swung limply on sagging hinges and revealed, at first, what seemed to be an old wooden-framed bed and a collection of rags. Then I realised the rags had form; white gleamed. Bone.
As Einar panted up the rope into the room I realised, from the hanks of hair and the remains of jewellery, that this could be Hild’s mother. Einar, peering over my shoulder, rubbed his moustaches and nodded when I offered my explanation.
‘Interesting,’ he said and then pointed out the obvious, which I had overlooked. ‘If it is, she could have unbarred the door, got out and returned to her child.’
That made me jerk. Perhaps it wasn’t her, after all, but some other luckless relative – a grandmother or older – but why they hadn’t walked out was still a mystery. However, as I pointed out to Einar and Illugi, the only two who came up, best not to mention this to Hild.
They nodded, though I wasn’t sure they heard. Illugi was too busy hunting for more runes and stirring up only the old dust of dried beans and insect husks. Einar, however, was at the metal chest and working a seax into the rusted lock.
It gave with a dull sound and he lifted the lid. We all peered, half expecting gold, swords, gem-studded crowns. Instead, there were a lot of cloth bundles which, when we unwrapped them, unveiled a series of blackened tin plates, some bound together through holes with the remains of leather thongs.
‘Like the book of leaves in St Otmund’s temple,’ I pointed out and Einar nodded, rummaging furiously and annoyed that there was only this and the metal was only tin.
‘Indeed,’ said Illugi, his eyes gleaming, ‘that’s what it is. Hold the torch closer, Orm. Let’s see … Yes, runes. Excellent …’ A moment later, he straightened, the disappointment palpable. ‘Apart from advice on never allowing two blades to lie across each other and a list of plants to rub into the anvil to give it more strength, there isn’t much here on smelting that I haven’t heard before.’
‘Useless, god-fucked place,’ mutte
red Einar moodily. ‘No treasure, no clues.’
‘There is the runespell on the wall below,’ Illugi said brightly.
‘Know what it says?’ demanded Einar.
‘I think it is something about truth, or being true. And there’s an eternity rune in there, which means long-lasting. And, of course, it all depends on how you cut them …’
‘You have no idea, do you?’ Einar challenged and Illugi shrugged, grinned sheepishly and admitted that to be true.
‘It seems to be what you’d expect to find on a good sword – a runespell to make a blade true and long-lasting,’ he said. ‘But the runes are old, different from the ones we know now.’
The shriek made us all jerk, an ear-splitting sound that bounced off the walls, ringing the whole place like a bell.
‘What the fuck … ?’
Einar was down the rope in a fast slide that must have flayed skin from his palms. I followed, only marginally slower, since I was almost certain I knew who had screamed.
I was right. Hild stood in the centre of a ring of wary warriors, clutching the spear-shaft to her chest. She was still as a carved prow, her eyes wide and staring at nothing, her mouth open and chest heaving, as if she could not breathe.
‘The monk made her do it,’ Bodvar said. ‘We were all thinking it a bad idea when she started to, but that little rat said someone had to and it might as well be her.’
Einar glared at Skapti, who tugged the leash so that Martin jerked. Halftroll shrugged and said, ‘He wasn’t wrong, Einar. Someone had to risk it.’
Martin, straightening, adjusted his cowl and smiled. ‘I was right. I have been right all along. This Hild is linked to the sword made here, a powerful weapon now thanks to the blood of Christ on that holy spearhead they used to forge it.
‘The heathens may have perverted the Spear of Destiny, but the blood stays true. True also is the blood of the smiths – she knows where the sword is and so also where the Great Hoard is.’
‘Kill the little fuck now,’ growled Ketil Crow.
‘He has the right of it,’ announced Hild in a strange, gentle, calm voice. ‘I am linked by the blood of the smiths who made this sword.’
‘How many spears were stuck in this Christ, then?’ Finn Horsehead demanded to know. ‘For I have heard that the Emperor of the Romans in the Great City has hundreds of Christ ikons, from a little cloth with the god’s face on it to a crown made of thorns. And a spear that was thrust in the side of this Jesus as he hung on his tree.’
‘False. I have the real spear,’ snapped Martin angrily and Einar whacked him on one ear, sending the little monk stumbling.
‘You have nothing at all, monk,’ Einar said in a voice thick and slow as a moving glacier. ‘You have your life only by my leave.’
Hild shook her head, as if scattering water from her. ‘I know where the sword of Attila is. I can take you there, far to the east, along the Khazars’ river.’
‘Where in the name of Odin’s arse is that?’ demanded Einar.
‘I know,’ said Pinleg like an eager boy. No one laughed now, not after what they had seen him do. ‘It’s down the Don,’ he announced triumphantly.
‘The Don?’ repeated Einar.
‘That’s Khazar territory,’ insisted Pinleg. ‘If it is the same Khazars who spit little arrows at you and worship the god of the Jewish men.’
‘The same,’ Hild said and there was silence, loud as a clanging hammer. The shock of it all was still chilling us when one of the door guards came in out of the dark tunnel, blinking into the light.
‘Rurik says to come quick,’ he told Einar, ‘for something has happened.’
‘Rurik? What is he doing here?’
We charged out, back along the passage and into the daylight, where the weak sun seemed searing and blinding. Blinking, we saw Rurik and Valgard Trimmer and four others. My father, grim-faced, stepped forward and I saw he had a bloody, unbound cut along the length of his forearm, seeping thickly through the rent in his tunic.
‘One of Starkad’s ships came,’ he said, ‘with Starkad and Ulf-Agar. There was a fight; eight of us were killed.’
‘How did you get the Elk away with so few?’ demanded Einar.
My father paused, scrubbed his face and the sickening realisation was dawning on us all before he even told us.
‘We didn’t. We came overland, with Starkad hot on our heels. We left the Elk burning to the waterline.’
EIGHT
It was at that moment that most saw how Einar’s doom was on him and most blamed it on the fact he had broken his oath. Einar, too, knew it, but he needed the crew still – more than ever at that moment – and I saw him meet his wyrd standing straight and with Loki cunning.
‘Well,’ he said with a whetstone smile, looking round the stunned, angry faces to men who knew they were stranded on a hostile shore. ‘Now we need the Oathsworn.’
And he turned, moving away from the forge mountain as the sun started dying on the edge of the world, heading uphill.
There was a flurry of mutters, argument traded for argument. One or two, either those who had worked it out, or those who would follow Einar into Helheim, shouldered their gear one more time and loped after him, long shadows bobbing. One was my father. Eventually, the others followed, grumbling about everything and especially why they were going uphill yet again.
‘Hold, I’ll bind that,’ I called and my father turned, grinning at the black sight of me.
‘You need to wash behind your ears, boy,’ he growled and I laughed with him and tore up my last clean underkirtle from my bundle to use on his forearm. It was a long, wicked cut, oozing blood.
‘Seax,’ he grunted.
‘You should have kept out of the way, old man,’ I said with a smile. His eyes, when they met mine, were brimming. He had lost the Elk. I felt it for him, but could do nothing more than concentrate on my knots and finish the binding.
‘What now?’ I asked him as he turned away and, to be fair, he knew what I meant at once.
‘In the end, everyone will see the same thing,’ he said quietly. ‘Einar broke oath and the gods are taking his luck. So now every man will be wondering what it will cost him to do the same.’
‘Einar broke oath with Eyvind, so I can break oath with Einar,’ I replied angrily. ‘So can you. So can anyone. The gods can find no fault with that, surely.’
My father patted my arm gently, as if I was still a child. ‘You are new to this, boy. Use that gift Einar prizes you for and I am proud of you for.’
Bewildered, I could only stare. The others, grumbling and still arguing, were hefting their stuff and following on up the hill, into the twilight.
My father smiled and said, ‘Can you break your oath to Einar, yet keep it with me?’
I saw, with a shock of clarity, what Einar had meant. We had sworn an oath to each other, not just to him, and that would keep us bound, for the more his luck went bad, the more he stood as a monument to what happens when you break the oath.
Yet the worse his luck got, the more we suffered. It went round and round, like the dragon coiled round the World Tree, tail in mouth.
My father nodded, seeing all of that chase across my face. ‘An oath,’ he said, ‘is a powerful thing.’
I brooded on it all the way back to where we camped, halfway up the forge mountain, where Einar sat alone, arms wrapped round his knees, his face hidden by the crow wings of his hair. There were no fires, little talk and, when it was too dark to check blades and straps, men lay down and, if they had them, wrapped themselves in cloaks and tried to sleep.
I wondered if, like me, they felt the doom of it all: a band, oathbound to an oathbreaker, followed a madwoman on a quest after treasure that was more fable than real. A skald would not dare make it into a saga tale for fear of the laughter.
More than likely, I realised later, they were brooding and miserable because their sea-chests had all gone up in flames, with everything they had left in them.
Skapti and
Ketil Crow made sure men kept watch, though I was excused after my labours of earlier. I sat and worried at the problem like a hound with a well-chewed bone, so lost in it that it took me a long while to realise that Hild had come up, silent and stately, hugging the spear-shaft to her like a baby.
She said nothing, just sat down, not quite beside me, not far away. Although I couldn’t see him in the darkness, I was aware of Martin, watching, waiting. I was glad he was still leashed to Skapti.
Dawn was another milky-gruel affair, with a creeping ground mist that disturbed everyone, but they generally agreed that Einar, doomed or not, was still a deep thinker for battle. He had taken us above the mist and anyone creeping up would, sooner or later, have to step out on to that bare, cragged skull of a hill and meet us fairly.
Some, of course, were all for getting away, but Ketil Crow, Skapti and the others put them straight: it was far too late for that. Starkad had sent men to follow Rurik and the survivors from the Elk. He was coming and there would be a fight.
And all this time Einar said nothing, though he was found already on his feet dressed for battle and wearing a dark blue cloak, fastened with an impressive ringpin of silver, worked with red stones. He spent the morning staring down the hill at the mists, stroking his moustache, while men sorted out their gear and checked and rechecked straps and shields.
Then, like an eerie wind, there came the sound of a lowing horn, distant and mournful.
‘That’s not clever,’ muttered Valknut. ‘He’ll have those villagers out.’
The horn sounded again, closer. Einar whirled, his cloak billowing, and pointed silently to Ketil Crow, Skapti, Valknut – and me. He looked at us all from eyes deep-sunk as mine shafts, then spoke as if his teeth were nailed to each other. ‘Skapti, make sure the monk stays fastened to you. He is what Starkad wants most. Orm, keep the woman with you also. Brondolf Lambisson will have told him much, but he knows little of the woman and nothing of how valuable she is to us. Valknut, break out the banner and guard it.’