by M J Porter
The interior of the farm was dark with the shutters, naturally, still up. He found the smell was manageable and his hand fell away from his nose as he walked into the dimly lit room, illuminated only by the rays of sunshine that shone through the new opening he had made. He bumped his way past furniture to the hearth and looked for some way to light the fire only realising when he arrived that it was a stupid idea. Surely if they had fuel for a fire they would still be alive.
He reversed his steps and walked towards the shutters on the window, fumbling around in the dark until he removed one. A small ray of late sunshine permeated the gloom of the room and he moved along the far wall removing all five shutters, being careful not to step on anything he might regret later, when all the shutters were down he resolutely turned back to view the room. He was braced for the bodies of the previous inhabitants to be scattered around on the sparse furniture. They were not. Where were they?
He walked towards the table to see if anything had been left behind. Usually when people knew they were not going to make it through the Long Night they left a note letting whoever found them know what had happened. Erann could see no note in the semi-light and stopped for a moment, his hands on the smooth wooden table top, considering his next actions.
With growing unease he walked towards the loft ladder. If whoever was dead was in the loft he would not be able to get them down himself, and would have to let the whole place burn in order to give them proper death rites. It would be a waste of a perfectly built steading but that was the way of his people.
The loft ladder was in place and so he put one step on the bottom rung and began to haul himself up. When his nose drew level with the floor of the loft, the smell intensified. Cursing to himself, he knew that he had found where the body or bodies would be.
He heaved himself into the loft and again wrapped his fur around his nose. It was black as midnight in the loft and he had no way of seeing who, or what was there. He gave his eyes a few seconds to adjust and then began walking slowly forward, his arms outstretched in front of him. His foot hit something solid and unbalanced him. He put his hands out to steady himself. A bad idea. They closed on something very cold, which used to be human. He just managed to stop himself from crying out loud and peered closer to see who he had found. The face of a small child – no older than three rotations, lay on the bed before him. It had obviously been there for a while as the body was starting to decompose even in the extreme cold. The bright yellow curls lay in a halo around the child’s head and he had to gulp back a sob. It was such a waste to see a life snuffed out like this.
He advanced more cautiously into the loft and came across a further bed with another child’s body in. The fur blankets were still covering the cold child, and if he had not known better, he could have mistaken the stillness for sleep. The child was slightly older than the other. Its face was angelically innocent, for all that it showed the ravages of starvation, and he found himself reaching out to touch the soft blonde curls framing the face. He snatched his hand back from the feathery hair when he realised what he was doing. Taking a calming breath he peered into the deepening gloom of the loft and realised that he could make out a further six beds. He strode forward with a confidence he did not feel and found first an old man and woman dead in their bed and then a younger woman dead in hers, with a small dead baby at her breast, its face permanently locked into a suckling motion. Erann choked back a sob. Where was the man, the farmer of this land?
Erann found him near the last bed where he had breathed his last whilst tending to another slightly older child, this one about five rotations. The man must have come to comfort the child only to weaken and die himself. The child was also dead but with an agonised look on his face and with his shadowy eyes staring open in silent plea. The father must have seen to everyone else’s eyes, and then the child saw to the father’s, but no one had been able to save this last young survivor and Erann found it incredibly hard to look away from his agonised eyes. He couldn’t leave him with his eyes staring blankly into space. With a deep breath, he lent forward and tried to close the child’s eyes. They would not close. Fumbling on the floor, he found two objects to weigh the eyelids down. It was the least he could do for this poor family.
Erann was about to turn to leave when he noticed a scrap of script in the child’s lifeless hands. He bent down and gingerly pried the fingers open, grimacing all the time, to extract the piece of script. With a heavy heart Erann then made his way back down to the living area. It made him realise how lucky his own family had been to survive the Long Night.
The script lay heavy in his hand. Did he really need to know the sad story that the script would tell him? He walked slowly towards the still open door clutching the tattered script. With a resolution he did not feel he opened the tiny fragment and discovered the name of the people and when they had started to die. The baby was only weeks old, her name had been Freya and her mother had been Estrith. They had died together. The next had been the small child, Harold, and then the other names were hastily scribbled, one after the other, in a rough hand, which had been desperate to preserve all their names and ages. The father had been Swein; the grandparents, Auld and Snorri. The last scribbled name was that of a further Snorri, and the script more childish. Erann had to assume that this was the hand of the child who had lain with his eyes staring at the dusky ceiling above his head.
Erann could feel a silent trickle of tears falling down his cheeks and he angrily wiped them away with his hand. He couldn’t stay here but he would ensure they received proper burial rites. He would have to set the place alight. He practically ran outside in his sudden desperation to get away. There was too much tragedy here, and all of it was too close to what had nearly happened to him and his mother and brother. He still did not understand how they had survived.
Outside twilight covered his path of earlier, and in the distance, the way forward was swathed in deepest purple, the mountains no more than a remembered menace. He could have used his heatstone to kindle a brand and walked on into that forbidding dark forgetting what he had seen here. He recoiled at the thought. He owed it to these people who must have once been ruled by his father, to see that they received proper burial rites. He needed to let them and their steading burn, and in order to do that, he needed to wait until the calm of day returned instead of the howling wind which was rapidly springing up. The wind would extinguish the flames before they took hold and he could not let that happen.
He stepped away from the entrance tunnel deep in thought. He could not spend the night inside the steading. What should he do? He knew that there were no other steadings within easy walking distance. He saw off to the right, in the gathering gloom, an extension of the steading. He walked towards it, and heaved open the huge wooden doors. A faint smell of manure and animal filled his nostrils and he realised that this must be the animal shed. They must have built it as an extension to the original steading. There was no taint of death here, and he knew that he would be able to seek shelter for the night within. He turned and returned briefly to the abandoned steading. With many grunts and groans, he refastened the shutters he had opened earlier, and then turned and pulled both the inner and the outer door firmly closed behind him. In the morning, he would set the fire, and send them on their way to their Gods. He could do little more for them.
He retraced his steps to the barn and quickly pulled the large doors closed behind him. He retrieved his heat stone from his backpack and managed to make a small fire by using some dried animal bedding that he found neatly stacked in the far corner. He wondered if the farmer had not been able to find it or if he had simply become too weak from lack of food to journey to this end of the steading? Whatever the answer was, he was grateful for the little bit of comfort. He did not feel like eating and so decided that he would not bother. He absent-mindedly fingered his father’s journal for a few moments, flicking through the silky pages and gazing at the neat columns. Still nothing came to him. He did not understand th
eir meaning, and now doubted that he ever would, as his father could no longer tell him their significance. The fire, when it caught, was very smoky and Erann coughed uncontrollably for a short time. When he recovered he curled into a tight ball and lay beside the fire watching the small blue flames dance before finally falling asleep.
His dreams that night were filled with wailing and crying children and he could vividly see the dead children running towards him begging him for food. The last child to die looked at him with anguish in his eyes and pleaded for help to come. Erann tossed and turned trying to escape from the dream but it held onto him and repeated over and over again. He could feel tears streaking his face and scrubbed at them in a half-asleep half-awake daze. He wanted to wake up but could not escape the cloying dream. And then a noise that he didn’t want to hear finally broke through into his restless state. He could hear the harsh baying of a wolf pack over the howling wind. They must have smelt the dead bodies with their keen sense of smell.
Erann lay gasping, glad to escape his dream, but terror stricken by the noises coming from outside. He was glad that he had thought to close and bolt the door both on the animal shed, and the steading. Would that be enough though? He hastily gathered his back pack and stamped on the fire to put it out. He did not want the wolves to smell a human who was alive. He had noticed earlier that there was a small loft space in the shed and so he fumbled around in the faint light from the dying fire until he found the ladder and hauled himself up there, taking the ladder with him. He hoped that they would not be able to get in. He wished he had set the steading on fire earlier and trudged away into the darkening night.
The wolves suddenly stopped howling. Now it was worse. Even above the howling wind he could hear their paw prints as they circled the steading and he wondered if they were following his scent or the smell of death.
He had no idea of how far into the night it was and how long it would be before dawn broke. He did not think he had been asleep long but he could be wrong. He wished that he could see the sky so that he could have tracked the planets above his head and known how long it was until dawn.
He sat huddled, alone and cold, listening to sharp nips and growls from the wolves for so long he wondered if daybreak would ever come. He had almost managed to convince himself that they were not going to attack when he heard scratching at the walls around him. As the shed was so empty the sound echoed and he could not determine exactly where the noise was coming from. He felt around hopelessly on the loft floor in the hope that some sort of weapon may come to hand. He had not thought that the wolves would be this far down from their normal territory and had not thought to defend himself when he had left his uncle’s home. It was rare for them to be seen anywhere other than the top of Odadahraun. The harsh weather must have affected their food supplies as well. They had found themselves a feast tonight.
Erann’s hand came across nothing as it skittered across the loft floor, serving only to blow up billows of dust that exasperated his ragged breathing as he fought back panic. What would he do if the wolves gained entry to the steading? He could not make a run for it because there was nowhere to go and they would follow his scent. He had no means of defending himself, if that were even possible against a pack of snarling, starving wolves.
His heart began to beat faster and faster and his breath came in uneven gasps. He could not fail now, not when he was so close to his destination. He must make his mother well. He must make it to Rankil’s.
Locked in his panicked mind with his own fears he was not aware for some time that the scratching had ended and that he could no longer hear the soft shuffle of the wolves’ feet on the snow outside. It was only when he managed to completely calm himself and still his breathing that the utter quiet of the night overwhelmed him. Even the howling wind had ceased. With a sob of relief he made himself comfortable against the rough wall and fell into a deep and disturbed sleep. He dreamt of fire.
* * *
He slept now and as he did he flew. The world spread out before him in an endless expanse of shimmering silvers and purples. Snow and ice lay everywhere. Only at the shore was their even the hint that there might be other shades on the planet. Below the ice there was a hint of emerald, faint from this height, but enough to know that when the ice melted a deep jade sea would be exposed. His mind cleared and he settled into a dream he remembered as his own.
* * *
Erann was feeling unnerved. He did not understand how he had come to be on Vatna Jokull. The last thing he remembered clearly was stumbling from the steading of death just to the south of Vatna Jokull. It must have been last sunrise. Everything since then was a blur. How had he survived outside for the night? He was sure that he must have been alone but couldn’t shake the feeling that he had not been. He vaguely recalled the cold of last night and the howling winds which had blown across him as he lay in the middle of the glacier. He recalled thinking that he was going to die a slow and painful death as he slowly lost all feeling in his extremities without having the will to do anything about it; reminded vividly of the night he thought his father had rescued him. Then he recalled nothing but a sense of slow and steady warmth working through his body and a deep feeling of peace. He had thought that was what it meant to die but now found himself in this cave, with a girl he vaguely remembered from his childhood. Apparently he had her wolf to thank for finding him. In a perverse way, he wondered what would have happened to him if they had not come. Would he have died after all or would he have discovered the presence he thought had kept him company throughout the frigid night.
He was sorry that he had snapped at Sereh. That was her name, he remembered now. She must be about his age. He wondered what had happened to her when her parents had died, and then realised that she had answered that question already, she was with Jarl Rankil now. He wondered if she enjoyed being his servant. She had spoken his name with an edge to her voice when explaining her presence here. Erann wondered what her tone implied. He did not want to push the conversation further. Instead he refocused on his own hazy memories of the day before.
He had woken from his disturbed nights sleep feeling remarkably refreshed and keen to begin his day. He had known he was not far from his destination and had been hopeful that he would reach it that night. What he had not bargained for was the scene that had greeted him when he had returned to the other end of the steading. Stepping into the weak sunlight he had wondered what had caused the mist swirling around him. Only as he had trudged through the snow to the tunnel opening of the steading had he realised that it was not mist. No. It was smoke turning wispy as the Sun’s rays hit it. He had gasped in shock. The steading was smoking.
He had stepped closer, almost not comprehending what he saw, reaching out to touch walls that were no longer there. How had the fire started? How had it stopped so that he hadn’t been burnt alive? As he looked closer he saw the smoking remains of wolves and gasped in horror and comprehension. He sat down abruptly in the slushy snow, his legs no longer able to support his weight as he realised how close he had come to dying the night before, and not just from a wolf attack.
He had come so close yesterday to dying, not once, but twice. He had lurched back to his feet and stumbled away from the scene of devastation, the aroma of burnt fur and flesh in his nose. He was unsure how he did not retch in disgust, fear and sheer relief at having missed being burnt alive or eaten by a wolf.
That was about all he remembered. Yes, he had been walking towards Vatna Jokull in a blind panic but how he had come to be here, to be found by Sereh and her wolf, he was not sure. He could only imagine that his thoughts had been clouded by his grief and that he had slipped and lumbered his way onwards, his mind fighting for a numbness he had achieved only upon collapsing where he stood.
“Erann”.
“Erann”.
“You might be rude and ungrateful; you could at least listen to me. Oh for Gods sake”, and Erann felt something warm thrust into his hand. It felt lovely and he snapped back
to the present, to the cave and to Sereh. He felt incoherent for a moment but then he noticed the angry set of Sereh’s face and he stumbled,
“Thanks, thanks Sereh. Sorry I was a bit distracted then.”
Her response was acerbic,
“Whatever. Have your soup and go back to your ‘distraction’, don’t worry about me” and she turned away from him, to tend the fire.
Now that he had managed to reassemble his thoughts and realised where he was and who he was with, he felt his earlier confusion returning. He did not want Sereh to ask him any more questions. Neither did he want to appear rude, again. He sipped his soup – it was hot and it tasted of nothing.
“This is good. What’s in it?”
“Whatever you had in your backpack and something that I think was the leaves of a spreading shrub. Do you know what it is? I would have asked you but you seemed a little busy”.
Again, her tone was stung and hurt and Erann felt guilty. He wanted to apologise whilst fearing that if he did she would resume her questioning of him and he certainly did not want that,
“Um. I think your right. My aunt gave me a few things to supplement what I had. Not that they had much.”
“Your aunt? Is that were you came from? Doesn’t she live to the south-west of here? How come you’ve ended up on the glacier?”
The questions – he just didn’t seem to be able to distract her. He muttered a “Yes” and returned to supping his soup and watching her warily over the rim of his wooden bowl. The blue eyes were afire with questions and she was looking anywhere but at him. He hoped he had put her off so that she would not try and question him again. He was certainly not going to offer any more openings.