Path of Gods

by Snorri Kristjansson

  The man kicked Finn’s dead body, looked down at him and smiled. ‘Poor Finn. He really tried, didn’t he?’ Then he looked back at King Olav. ‘There is nothing here for you,’ he said, and his face was suddenly hard. He took a step closer.

  Olav sensed the presence behind him, but too late. Huge hands clasped his shoulders and pulled his arms painfully upwards, exposing his chest. He kicked out and hit something, but it felt thick; unresponsive. Pain lashed through him as he was pulled roughly upwards. His heart thumped in his chest and he could hear a heavy, scraping sound behind him. He tried to look, but hands were on his head, several strong, heavy hands, holding him steady, suspended a good four feet above the ground.

  A shadow crept up from behind him and fell over his shoulder. The familiar shape of the wooden cross did not give him any relief.

  He looked back at the leader of the village, who now held a wooden mallet in his hand.

  ‘You know what they say, though,’ he said, smiling. ‘When all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.’

  The stench of death overwhelmed Olav then, the cold of blue-frozen bodies, and he saw the soldiers in the circle. They were all big, all quiet, and blue, like the mountains.

  He fought them as they dragged him to the cross, and he screamed when the tall man touched the sharp point of a wooden sliver to his palm and lifted the hammer—

  *

  King Olav woke with a start, drenched in sweat under his furs. The room was stuffy, and stank of sweat and fear. Half-mad, the king fumbled for the cross on his necklace, grasped it and started muttering, ‘Pater noster, qui es in caelis . . .’

  Outside his window, the northern winds picked up again. All over Trondheim animals cowered in corners, huddling together for warmth and safety.

  *

  Forty miles further north, the sun rose on a farmer clambering awkwardly through a snowdrift half his height to get to a barn. The animals bleated at him the moment he opened the door and the stocky, coarse-featured, red-haired man waved them off. ‘Calm down,’ he said, walking over the boards to the fenced-off hay enclosure. ‘Easy now. You’ll be fed, soon enough. Just like yesterday, and the day before.’

  The sheep bleated in response, nudging their heads through the wooden fence to get closer. The farmer wrapped his coat tighter around him. ‘I should shear a couple more of you,’ he said to the nearest ones as he grabbed his pitchfork. ‘Make me another shift. It’s sharp out there, all right.’ The temperature had been dropping steadily for a week; even for the season, it was unusually cold. He stabbed the hay with a vengeance and shovelled the first load in the trough. ‘There you go,’ he said.

  The barn had gone dead quiet.

  The sheep were all standing stock-still and staring in the same direction: towards the north corner of the room. The farmer banged his pitchfork on the feeder, but none of them responded; they just stood there, eyes trained on the corner of the barn, nostrils flaring.

  Then the first one started to bleat and move backwards, away from the corner.

  The second one followed.

  The farmer felt time slow down around him as he thought back over a lifetime of working the land. He had seen and cared for more sheep than he ever could count, and he remembered a couple of times when wolves had got in among his herd, but the animals had never sounded like this; they’d never taken on this bad.

  Half the flock was now bleating wildly, with more joining in with every breath, and the barn was bursting with the noise. The sheep were pushing at each other to get away from the north corner, but none of them seemed to dare look anywhere else. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a fat ewe bite half an ear off another just because it was in the way, and the blood shocked the farmer out of his stupor. The wooden fence that kept the sheep penned in their square enclosures was creaking now, and all the animals were bleating, all of them, constantly.

  A stench of shit, piss and hot air flooded the barn as bowels started voiding and the bleating grew louder still. On his left, one animal charged head-first into the south wall, as if trying to smash its way out, and the smell of blood started to drive the animals further into madness.

  Something in the back of the farmer’s brain told him move get out now now now and he sprinted towards the door, and behind him he heard the sound of snapping wood and the panicked scrabbling of hooves on planks as a hundred and ten animals all clamoured to get out after him, into the arms of cold and certain death. He punched the doors open, launched himself out and slammed them shut again, dragging the bar in place just as the first sheep thudded into the door. Pushing himself away, the farmer looked on in horror as the bleating grew louder, accompanied by thuds as the walls shook with the impact of animals smashing into the walls, over and over again, pushing to get out.

  On the other side of the barn, a mile away, six men crested the hill and walked south.

  Chapter 3

  SOUTH SWEDEN

  DECEMBER, AD 996

  The sun set early, but the army marched on for as long as they thought they could. When the last dim light started to fade, Alfgeir looked at Jolawer and shouted, ‘Stop!’ The command travelled down through the lines and slowly a thousand men came to a halt.

  ‘Camp!’ the big man cried, and the men split into small groups and started erecting lean-tos and tents. Ulfar watched Sigurd and Sven set to rounding up their troops and setting up a tight camp off to the side with a perimeter, paths and a space for a fire in the middle.

  ‘The bear’s gone soft, hasn’t he?’ Sven muttered.

  ‘He was never one for this kind of discipline,’ Sigurd replied.

  ‘True,’ Sven said. ‘Still, one would think he’d try to teach the young king good habits.’

  ‘Habits grow where they will,’ Sigurd said slowly. ‘Maybe Alfgeir Bjorne is training the king just right.’

  Ulfar followed his eye to where King Jolawer Scot was standing, observing their little side camp from afar with a watchful eye.

  Sven grinned and turned to salute. ‘My king! Come on over, why won’t you?’

  The king moved closer, head swivelling to take it all in. When he was fully within their camp, he spoke, surprising Ulfar again with his steady voice. ‘This is very impressive,’ he said.

  ‘We’ve done it a couple of times,’ Sven said, with enough false modesty to force Ulfar to suppress a laugh.

  ‘We wish you to come sit with us at our fire. We could use all the knowledge you have on King Olav,’ Jolawer said.

  ‘Lead the way,’ Sven said.

  As Jolawer turned and walked off Sigurd followed, while Sven darted off in the other direction. He reappeared moments later and found Ulfar. ‘Oskarl is in charge. Son, you’re not coming to this one. Understood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sven looked him up and down, frowning. ‘And don’t go doing anything stupid while I’m not looking after your bony arse, either.’

  ‘I will follow your shining example in all things,’ Ulfar said.

  ‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ Sven said, shooting him one last dirty look before turning to catch up with Sigurd.

  He doesn’t have to worry, Ulfar thought. There were other and more important things to do. He found Audun sitting close to the fire with a bucket of snow and a metal rod, sharpening knives. ‘So they found out, then?’

  ‘Yep,’ Audun said. ‘One of the Stenvik boys said the blades went to shit after I left, then one of Jolawer’s asked if I’d been a smith and now I’m stuck with this.’ He gestured to his feet. A cloth held two blades that glistened wetly in the firelight. Next to it, fourteen knives were laid out, waiting to be sharpened.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Ulfar said.

  ‘We do,’ Audun said.

  ‘Hasn’t been much time,’ Ulfar said.

  ‘There hasn’t,’ Audun said.

  ‘I died in Upps
ala,’ Ulfar said.

  Audun was quiet for a while, then, to the backdrop of camp noise and the steady scraping of steel on iron. ‘So that’s it, then,’ he said eventually. ‘Both of us.’

  ‘Seems to be,’ Ulfar said. The truth hung in the air between them.

  ‘Saw you when the old guys said they’d been dug up,’ Audun said. ‘Did you meet . . . him?’

  ‘I think I did, yes.’

  ‘Me too. He called himself Fjolnir—’

  ‘—Gestumblindi—’

  ‘—and he gave me a gift. A belt.’

  This time Ulfar fell quiet.

  Audun looked up from the knife’s edge. ‘You too?’

  Ulfar nodded.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘He saved my life. Scared off Karle in the forest.’

  ‘Hm. What does he want?’

  ‘I think I know, but I’m not talking about that here,’ Ulfar said quietly.

  ‘What are you two lovers whispering about?’ Thormund said from the darkness. Moments later his face appeared across the fire.

  ‘How Audun’s leaving me for you and your lovely beard,’ Ulfar said.

  The old horse thief chortled and shuffled around the fire until he stood next to them. ‘You’re funny, Swede.’

  ‘Ulfar,’ Ulfar said. ‘And thank you.’

  Thormund looked the tall young man up and down in the firelight. ‘Was it a woman?’

  Audun suppressed a smile and continued sharpening the blades.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ulfar said.

  ‘You pissed off their archer, what’s his name . . . ?’

  ‘Karle,’ Ulfar said.

  ‘Yeah, him. You got on his wrong side: if he could kill you with a look your limbs would be in seven countries by now. Was it a woman?’

  ‘You could say that. I caught him with a young girl – he was about to take what he wanted, and she didn’t want him to. We had a discussion.’

  ‘Broke his arm,’ Audun said.

  Thormund’s expression softened somewhat. ‘Knew we’d get along,’ he murmured. ‘Suspect you might want to tread lightly in this camp, though. Heard some mutterings.’

  Ulfar looked around, at the lean-tos and tents in the dark, at the heart of the black shadows in between.

  ‘Oh, they won’t come here. They don’t care for us much on account of us going with Forkbeard, but they’re staying five steps south of the Stenvik boys. They have a reputation,’ the old horse thief added.

  ‘Do they?’ Ulfar said.

  ‘Sure do,’ Thormund said. ‘Sigurd Aegisson? Sven? Oh, youth. You really do not know who you’re running with?’

  ‘Assume that we don’t,’ Ulfar said.

  Beside him, Audun’s sharpening iron moved a lot slower.

  ‘As young men they would raid up and down the coast of Anglia. Aegir, Sigurd’s father, was a hard bastard and no lie. He was involved in the wars of the kings, about seventy summers ago, maybe. He taught the boys, Sigurd and Sven, everything there was to know about sailing a boat. They went south, as far south as anyone’s been, right down to the kingdom of the Turk. For the first forty years of their lives they must have spent four days at sea for every one on land. Their reputation grew steadily, until mothers in coastal towns everywhere within reach were sending kids to sleep saying Sigurd Sea-Wolf would get them if they weren’t good.’ Thormund’s eyes sparkled in the firelight. ‘When they came back, a great war was afoot – they’d started collecting the Danegeld, and there was room for hard men to get very rich indeed. So they signed on to sail with a terrifying crew.’ The old horse thief looked into the middle distance, as if he could spot the sail on the horizon. ‘One ship – just one ship – but every single one of those bastards was worth ten, fifteen normal men. It was a proper drake, too. It was called Njordur’s Mercy. Their captain was the hardest of them all, a big bull of a man. Legend had it he was from the Far North and his mother was a Finn-witch. When she saw the child, she carved a scar on his neck.’

  ‘Why?’ Audun said.

  The old man cleared his throat. ‘There was a rhyme . . . I can’t remember it now, but it said that since he’d been carved by someone who loved him, he couldn’t be harmed by the ones who hated him. It wasn’t true – he got hurt plenty – but he believed it at first, and once he grew up to be big and strong he realised that other people believed it too and it became the mark of his trade. So when the time came, he carved a scar in his son’s neck, and another in his own. He was the captain, and he was called—’

  ‘—Skargrim,’ Ulfar said.

  ‘And from the very first day, our boatsman was called Thormund,’ a voice said in the darkness, and Sigurd emerged from the shadows. ‘Well, not back then. We called him Cutter, because whenever there was fighting to be done he’d disappear. Then we’d do the counting and quite a lot of throats would have just got . . . cut. Sometimes, if the men had been a bit hard on the women in the place, they’d be our own.’

  ‘I – I—’ the old horse thief stammered.

  ‘Let me guess. You were going to slink away just as soon as you’d said goodbye to the boys?’ Sigurd said. ‘Some things never change, do they?’

  Thormund’s shoulders slumped. ‘No. They don’t.’

  ‘But you said you hated boats,’ Audun said.

  ‘Didn’t always,’ Thormund said.

  Sigurd came closer, a half-smile on his lips. ‘Good to see you, old friend. I thought I recognised you, but it’s been a while.’

  ‘Thirty years.’

  ‘I know the dark is calling you, and if I know you at all, I don’t think anything about this little party of ours is to your liking. But I am afraid there may not be any running away from this one.’

  Suddenly, Ulfar felt the chill in the air. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Jolawer has agreed. We’re going to find Forkbeard. Apparently King Olav is gathering chieftains in the north, so we’re going up there to kick him in the teeth.’

  None of the men spoke. Behind them, snowflakes drifted to the ground and hissed as they hit the flames.

  *

  In the king’s tent, Alfgeir Bjorne watched Jolawer Scot. The young king sat silently, just staring into the mug he held in both hands.

  ‘I still don’t understand why we need to have these old farts along with us,’ Karle said. ‘They’re nothing but trouble. And they have no respect. They just like to talk shit and pull faces and they won’t be able to back it up. I mean, half of their little army is Forkbeard’s, for fuck’s sake! What’s to stop them from turning on us when we meet Forkbeard himself, hm? What’s to stop them from squeezing us between them and him, falling on our backs? They get paid for getting you, Forkbeard is King of Sweden and the Dane-lands. Forkbeard wins. You die.’

  ‘Shut up, Karle,’ the young king said calmly, not taking his eyes off the mug. Alfgeir Bjorne had to swallow a laugh as Karle turned beetroot-red. The king didn’t notice. ‘Tomorrow you’re going to organise our camp. We need to be like they are.’

  ‘What?’ Karle sputtered. ‘What are you on about?’

  Jolawer turned to face his cousin. ‘There are two camps here,’ he said, his voice calm and strong. ‘One is set by men of war. It is put together by men who are used to travelling, men who are ready to go at a moment’s notice. It is set with minimum effort, blades within reach, and you can bet—’ The king stopped, looked around again, then continued, ‘I’ll bet everything will be packed and ready to go at sun-up. The other camp – the other is a hodgepodge of tents, thrown up by farmers, followers and old men in rusted mail, grouped by allegiances and families, spread out over half again the space they really need. In an attack, it would crumble. Men would run out of their tents and into each other. It says, loud and clear, that whoever runs it is not ready for a stern exchange of words, let alone a war.’

  Stunned,
Karle could do nothing but stare at King Jolawer Scot.

  Unmoved, the king took a long sip of mead. ‘Now, which one is ours?’

  Karle swallowed. ‘I think—’

  ‘Which one is ours?’

  ‘You can’t compare—’

  ‘I can, and I will. Next to Sigurd we look like children with sticks, Karle. And I don’t want to sit down opposite Forkbeard with a crowd of children at my back. Tomorrow, start making soldiers for me.’ He looked up and his eyes found the hulking figure of Alfgeir Bjorne. ‘You will help.’ Then he turned and kept his gaze steady on Karle. ‘And you will not tell me again what I can and cannot do. Understood?’

  Karle stared at the king. ‘. . . Understood,’ he mumbled. ‘I will go to rest now, then.’

  ‘You do that,’ King Jolawer Scot said.

  When the white cloak had swished out of view, Jolawer turned to Alfgeir again. ‘Was that . . . too much?’

  ‘Not at all, your Majesty,’ the old soldier rumbled, trying and failing to hide the grin on his face. ‘Not at all.’

  *

  ‘This is not daylight,’ Audun grumbled, massaging a sore back. ‘This is just slightly less dark.’

  Ulfar mumbled something unintelligible at him. Sigurd and Sven had been very insistent on the men being up before the crack of dawn, and Oskarl had gone one further and had some very calm but uncomfortable suggestions involving blades and armpits for those who felt they should be allowed to rise when they wanted to.

  Around them the men of Stenvik worked quickly and quietly, folding up tents and shelters, packing up the camp. Audun thought of a pack of wolves as he watched Forkbeard’s newcomers fall into the rhythm without needing any instructions. Nobody howled, but there was an unspoken understanding that if you stepped out, you’d get bitten.