‘No,’ Helga snapped. ‘And there’s worse things than King Olav Tryggvason.’
The mood in the camp changed then.
‘Right then. I’ll kill her myself if you don’t stop your fucking rumbling.’ A woman emerged from behind the big man, not much more than half his height. Her short cropped hair made her look like a bottle of lightning. She turned her eyes on Helga. ‘Right, sister. I’ll give you’ – she counted thoughtfully on her fingers – ‘three words before I spill your guts and drag you into the woods for the ravens so I’ – she turned and glared at the big man, who suddenly looked less than comfortable – ‘can get some sleep.’
She looked back at Helga and showed her teeth in what was probably supposed to be a smile. ‘If I don’t get my sleep I tend to lose my temper.’ She gestured to the men. ‘They’ve seen it happen. That’s why they’ve all taken a couple of steps back. Now. Your last three words. Go.’
‘Loki walks,’ Helga blurted out. The sting was so sharp that it reached her before the sound of the slap did. An uncomfortable warmth spread from her cheek, and the left side of her face throbbed. She reached up and touched the sore spot gingerly. Three drops of blood came away on her fingers.
The woman before her stepped back. ‘You want to watch your mouth,’ she snarled. There was no trace of mirth in the circle of men now. Helga felt more than saw them tense and slip into their fighters’ minds, but the woman before her kept her hands free of the daggers in her belt. For now.
‘The North,’ Helga continued, tugging nervously at the folds of her dress, forcing herself to look at the woman. ‘Loki is on the move, stirring up the beasts of the underworld, seeking to raise armies and get as many people killed as possible. Nowhere is safe.’
The woman turned to the big man. ‘See? You should have gutted her. She’s wrong in the head.’
‘If she is, then what were those men searching for, up Egill’s way?’ the big man rumbled.
‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’ The woman turned to Helga again and sneered, ‘They’re dead now. Maybe I just don’t like her. That’s been reason enough a couple of times.’ Her hand went to the hilt of a dagger.
Helga threw her arms up in the air. ‘Fine! Condemn all of the North to death, why don’t you? It looks like it would save you time, you b—’
Loud shouts of warning drowned her out.
‘THE FIRE—!’
‘BLADES – NOW!’
The fire was burning faster now, and brighter, hot enough to pull at the skin. The men next to it dived out of the way and underneath the flames, in the hollow space that was just heat and smoke, something stirred.
‘Back up,’ the big man bellowed. ‘Ognvald, fetch my axe.’
All around Helga, blades were being drawn – hardened spears, axes and swords – the men moving as a unit, forming lines and staying well away from the fire.
The flames danced faster and faster, spinning around each other, sucking the golden air into shapes as the logs underneath crackled and snapped, groaning as they burned.
‘Scouts: watch our backs,’ the big man commanded, and immediately men peeled off the edge of the lines facing the fire and disappeared into the darkness.
‘Don’t you fucking move,’ the woman growled at Helga.
The flames bucked and tossed now, exploding upwards in showers of embers. The trees around the fire were bathed in white light and the faces of the men were suddenly clearly visible. Somewhere in the shadows, Streak screamed in fear.
The thing rose from the flames, half again the height of a man and thick like a tree trunk. It had the shape of two legs, but instead of arms, long, thick rope-tendrils of flame swung about. It had no head, but there was an uncanny feel to its trunk, as if it was looking right at them.
A young man at their side screamed and charged, but a thin line of fire lashed out and effortlessly caught his spear, snipping it in two. And still the flames grew. Helga saw the faces of the men, sweat-covered and fearless, but uncertain, no idea how to deal with this new enemy. Underneath its feet the ground was drying out, hissing with steam where water evaporated, charring and fusing. The thing stumbled out of the fire, towards their little group, and young Ognvald screamed in frustration, grabbed swords off two men and charged towards the fire demon.
‘STOP!’ his father bellowed, but the youth had his head down and was pushing against the oppressive heat.
Now.
Now was the time.
Helga reached and grabbed the woman’s shoulder. ‘Give me a knife.’ A bony hand shot up, faster than she’d thought possible, and latched onto her wrist, but Helga had worked a farm for twenty years and she held on. The flames reflected in the short woman’s wild eyes and in a blink her blade appeared at Helga’s throat.
Still Helga didn’t flinch. ‘Give. Me. A. Knife.’
To her surprise, something of a glint of genuine amusement twinkled in the woman’s eye. ‘Here you go,’ she said, twirling the blade around and offering it, hilt-first, with a sensible step back as soon as Helga’s grip loosened.
Grabbing the knife, Helga steadily turned around and caught Ygval’s eye. The man was in his mid-thirties, handsome in a wolf’s way, with a neat, grey-streaked beard and thick brown hair. She drew a deep breath and put everything she had into two words.
‘Trust me,’ she said.
Ygval looked at the short woman, then at the blade. Even in the rising heat, he looked bemused. ‘All right,’ he said.
‘Show me your shoulder,’ Helga said. At their side the fire roared as someone screamed in pain; out of the corner of her eye she could see Ognvald, staggering backwards, slapping at flames dancing on his arms and legs.
Ygval did as he was told, pulling down his shift to reveal lean, hard muscle.
‘I am going to cut you,’ she said, looking him straight in the eye.
He stared straight back and grinned at her. ‘Won’t be the first time,’ he said.
She smiled back. At least she’d had a little luck in the picking. She checked his hips. Sword. Good. Nice hips, too. Reaching down into her folds she very quickly substituted the woman’s knife for her own rune-carving blade. This lot would most likely have taken my head off on instinct if I’d pulled a concealed blade, she thought as she made four sharp incisions into the fighter’s flesh.
He looked down at his shoulder, at the blood that welled up through the thin cuts. ‘Nice rune,’ he said. ‘What does it—?’
His eyes opened as wide as they went, and he shuddered.
‘Take your sword and stab it in the heart.’
Ygval nodded, almost in a trance, and turned towards the raging, walking fire. The circle had expanded as wide as it could. Around the fire, anything that could burn was now alight. The fighter drew his blade and walked, slowly but surely, into the blazing circle.
Helga watched the big man, his son and the woman staring at Ygval. Everyone around the fire held their breath.
A tendril of fire lashed out and caught him right across the chest; there was a hissing sound and clouds of steam rose around Ygval’s head. Without a word, not even a cry of pain, the fighter went up to the fire-thing and stabbed his sword into the centre of it.
The fire hissed and spilled, the flames dancing away from the red-hot blade, but they couldn’t escape. Ygval moved to the left and slashed at the fire creature’s legs, then stabbed the creature once again before hacking at the tendrils. Everywhere he touched the monster, the fires softened and the temperature dropped another notch. Stunned silence turned to shouts of encouragement, then screams of triumph as the fire grew smaller and smaller, until with a final stroke the creature simply turned in on itself and vanished—
—and darkness flooded the forest circle.
‘Eyes,’ the big man growled, ‘get a new fucking fire started right now, but make it small. Someone see to Ygval.’ The
smell of roasted flesh, sickly and shamefully delicious, was chased away by the rush of wind whooshing back to fill the space left by the fire.
Something sparked down by the ground and soon enough a small fire rose to replace the original campfire.
All through the men’s activity Helga could feel the heat of the small woman’s stare. It was like being watched by a vicious guard dog. Her face drifted in and out of darkness, sometimes hidden by the shadow of the big man, who was striding around the camp, establishing that everything was set up to his liking.
Helga looked at the short woman then. Her face was scarred and hard, the face of someone who had spent precious little time indoors by a cosy fire. Her body was lean, almost boyish. Her cropped hair stuck out at odd angles – in fact, all of her looked spiky; there was not a soft curve anywhere on her. All through the examination the woman’s stare didn’t waver, and she gave nothing away.
‘Bring her over,’ the big man rumbled, and the woman grabbed Helga and dragged her without ceremony to where the big man and his son were standing next to Ygval.
‘Who the fuck are you, and what did you do?’ the big man asked.
‘Protection,’ Helga said. ‘It’s very crude, and won’t last long.’
‘You a witch?’ the boy said.
Helga looked at him, thought about his question for a moment and then said, ‘Yes, if it makes you feel better. I know, and I’ve seen. That was a fire-troll – it was small and weak, but they’ll just get bigger and stronger, and because Loki walks they will be looking for ways into our world to join him.’
‘And can you protect us against the forces of Loki?’ the big man rumbled.
‘Yes,’ Helga said.
‘Well then. We’d better get up North and see if we can stop the fucker from walking too much,’ he said.
There was no cheer, no rousing speech. If the big man’s followers had even noticed that they’d been summoned to war, they didn’t appear to care much.
A massive hand was in front of Helga. ‘I am Skadvald,’ the big man said.
She shook it, waiting for the crunch of bones, but the man was surprisingly aware of his strength.
‘And this is my boy, Ognvald.’
‘Well met,’ the youth said.
‘Well met,’ Helga echoed.
‘And this—’ Skadvald started.
‘—is Thora,’ the short woman interrupted. ‘And I have no time at all for runes and magic. So the moment I find out that you’re not what you appear to be, or if I see you messing with any of my boys’ heads’ – and she fixed Helga with a cold look – ‘I kill you. With a knife. In the face. Understood?’
‘Understood,’ Helga said.
‘You’re going to make yourself useful, and if you make trouble between the men . . .’
‘That won’t happen,’ Helga said, and something about the way she said it seemed to be enough for Thora; she turned away and walked off into the camp, followed by Skadvald and Ognvald.
Suddenly Helga was standing all alone in the middle of the men, watching the camp get back to rotations, fire, rest and food.
She looked at the three men laid out on the ground. One of them would not live through the night. The other two would be in an awful lot of pain for a long time, and they would never get rid of the scars.
The rune that summoned the troll had been very crude; it had been tricky to throw it into the fire, but she’d managed. It was a shame that the men had had to suffer, but there had been no other choice. Loki’s plans had to be stopped.
Helga checked to make sure that no one was watching, allowed herself a small smile and went over to tend to Streak.
Chapter 8
NORTH OF TRONDHEIM
DECEMBER, AD 996
The black winter night stretched overhead, dotted with white. Valgard luxuriated in his senses, savouring the height of the sky above him and the sensation of the cold, cold ground. He could hear them coming from far away; they were at the foot of the hill, stumbling through the woods with weapons clattering and armour clinking.
Two steps brought him to the top of the ridge and it didn’t take him long to spot them down there, shifting shadows in amongst the trees. Their scent drifted ahead of them: sweat and fear.
Good.
King Olav led from the front, pushing through the snow as if it were a personal affront to him and his reign, looking to find the source of the stampeding animals. It had been terrifyingly easy to find their minds and give them a reason to run, and the effect had been pleasing.
Valgard pushed a thought out into the air.
—see me—
Like someone remembering a dream, the king’s head rose and he scanned the top of the ridge. In the moonlight his face looked gaunt and drawn.
‘WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!’ he cried.
‘Not yet,’ Valgard said, surprised at the calm authority in his own voice.
‘. . . Valgard—?’
‘Yes,’ Valgard said. ‘It is me.’
King Olav cracked a tired smile. ‘Old friend – we thought we’d lost you!’
‘You did,’ Valgard replied. ‘And your kingdom, too.’ Off to King Olav’s side he could see the lickspittle – Hjalti, that was his name – wading through the snow. Behind them Valgard sensed movement: soldiers. Looked like the king had decided to bring a hundred of his friends with him.
The Lord provides. He smiled.
‘What do you mean?’ The king sounded confused.
‘This is my country now,’ Valgard said calmly.
For a moment the king looked flustered and confused, as if he were struggling with a memory. Valgard tried reaching out to his mind . . . and tasted torchlight, iron and the touch of Loki like a drop of honey on his tongue.
The king was still staring at him. ‘We must get you to Trondheim, Valgard! There’s something out here – something dangerous.’
‘I know,’ Valgard said, and finally he saw comprehension dawn on the king. He could almost feel the way the years of fighting took him over; how easily the mask of the warrior slipped over his head.
‘BLADES!’ the king screamed, and was rewarded with a concert of steel leaving sheathes in the darkness.
Valgard did not move. He just smiled. ‘Those won’t do you any good,’ he said conversationally.
‘We’ll have to see about that,’ King Olav growled and strode towards him, quickly closing the gap to forty yards.
Valgard motioned with his hand and they came out of the night to stand beside him: five of them, hewn of frost, all at least six and a half foot tall. They looked inhuman. There was a stillness about them that reminded him of trees and mountains, and winter predators waiting for the soft meat to come closer.
King Olav waded on, snow up to the middle of his shins, and Valgard watched him coming towards them and felt a curious absence of fear.
Behind the king Hjalti spoke up, his voice quavering. ‘. . . Botolf?’
The king glanced up at the tallest of the blue-tinged creatures. There was only a faint suggestion of recognition there, but not enough. He drew his sword and closed in.
Valgard couldn’t help smiling – it was all so amusing. He looked the king in the eye and took a half-step back, behind his men, and that was enough to tip King Olav over the edge.
Fury took the king, who charged, screaming, and his sword dug into Ormslev’s shoulder.
—go—
—break them—
Valgard pushed the thought out and watched Ormslev deliver a furious back-handed slap to the king’s ribcage, driving the air out of the man and sending him flying, spinning like a child’s thrown rag doll. Whatever was left of Valgard the Healer winced as the ruler of the Norsemen smashed backwards into the nearest tree, then collapsed face-first in the snow. Botolf and Skeggi were moving too, with Jori and Ormar close behind. A brav
e warrior stepped in front of them, a big man, swinging an axe in a menacing fashion. Botolf knocked the weapon out of his hands and seized the man by the shoulders, and without breaking stride Skeggi grabbed the man’s knees, sweeping him off his feet. As the big man screamed in pain, Skeggi and Botolf pulled, and the inhuman noise was followed by the sound of snapping and ripping.
Valgard walked in their wake, observing with detached interest the hot blood colouring the snow, spurting from the broken axe-man. King Olav’s men were beginning to look less interested in fighting than fleeing, shuffling backwards, struggling to find ground to hold. To his far left a young warrior dropped his axe and turned to run for it.
Stop him—
Valgard had no sooner thought it than Jori bolted like a hunting dog after the man, catching him in twelve steps. A moment later he turned and walked back towards him, leaving the twisted, lifeless corpse where he had dropped it.
At least that settled it for the soldiers. They retreated a couple of steps into the forest to get the advantage of trees for cover, then bunched tighter together and formed up, albeit quivering, into something resembling a shield-wall facing Valgard and his five trolls.
Valgard searched for the cold, hard minds of his trolls, finding them more easily now, like silvery fish in a lake.
Kill them—
—kill them all—
Botolf moved first, snapping off a branch as thick as his arm as he passed the first trees. Skeggi followed, then Ormslev, Ormar and Jori. Valgard felt an odd surge of almost paternal pride as he watched them: they appeared more confident, more assured now, less stiff and lumbering, more fluid. Less bear, more wolf.
The second of King Olav’s men died messily, Botolf’s tree branch wedged in his face. The third fell, clutching his smashed kneecaps and screaming, until Ormslev stepped on his throat.
Something in the back of Valgard’s head hummed, a flaw in the pattern, a grain of sand in his mind’s eye. There was a ripple, a shimmer in the darkness – and then a flame.
Shield your eyes, fool, the voice hissed at him, hoarse with anger.
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