by Vox Day
“Now we are truly the dead,” he said quietly, mostly to himself, and he raised the wooden cup to his lips. The mead was bitter and it burned like oily fire down his gullet, but he emptied the cup in a single draught. Ottar the Grævling nodded to him, acknowledging that the irrevocable step had at last been taken, and the approving roar of the men echoed off the stone walls of the hall.
Enflamed by his example, men crowded towards the cask, unafraid and eager to drink from the cup of death. But Steinthor didn’t wait to watch. He didn’t know exactly how much time was left to him, but he knew there wasn’t much and there were still wolves to kill.
“Open the doors!” he bellowed. “Open the gates!”
The great wooden doors creaked open. The Grævling ran to his side and handed him a torch. He looked back and saw that Ottar’s men had a large stack of them and were beginning to light them. No sooner had a man drank from the cask and roared out his defiance of the death that would soon claim him than he was pushed towards Steinthor and handed a blazing torch.
Steinthor and the Grævling looked at each other. Neither one spoke. There was nothing to say. Steinthor looked around, saw that ten or twelve men had joined him, and decided that was enough. He pointed his torch at the fires that indicated the center of what passed for the Aalvarg encampment.
“Død for ulvene!” he shouted one more time, and then he plunged forward into the darkness.
The Aalvarg were initially taken aback by the unexpected sortie from the main gate. Their attention was on the two towers they had taken and they were fully occupied with trying to break down the barred and reinforced doors that would give them access to the heart of Raknarborg. The wolves closest to the entrance were not prepared for further battle, and were in fact milling aimlessly about, snapping at each other, and in some cases, even curled up and sleeping.
Steinthor drove his sword through one cringing wolf and set another alight with his torch. It soon became clear that these were not whatever passed for front-line troops, as they were smaller than those on the tower, and many of them yipped and ran before the attacking Dalarn. A few snarling wolves tried halfheartedly to stand, but they were rapidly overrun by the men who stumbled forward despite their wounds and the poison that coursed through their veins.
“How long do you think we have?” gasped one bearded warrior, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side.
“Long enough to get there,” Steinthor grunted, pointing at the fires that were their destination. It didn’t really matter, but he knew the men needed a destination, and if there was any chance he could somehow kill one of the Aalvarg leaders, he was going to seize it.
He’d asked the Grævling to brew something that would be as deadly as it was slow-acting. It seemed he had succeeded, since he hadn’t dropped over dead as soon as he’d quaffed the doombrew, as he’d half-expected. Whether it would be strong enough to sicken the wolves that devoured them or if it would merely cause the monsters to turn away from their corpses, there was no way to know. But either fate was preferable to ending up in an Aalvarg gullet.
A series of howls came from the hills above them. They were answered by the wolves on either side, and almost immediately, the few wolves that had been harrying them fell back. It soon became apparent that the enemy was no longer resisting their charge, but was retreating steadily before it. Steinthor looked to the left and he could see eyes glowing in the torchlight, moving as they loped easily alongside the jogging men. The same was true on the right. They were escorting him to the very place he wanted to go, he realized with grim satisfaction.
The slope of the hill was a struggle. More than one man collapsed, overcome with blood loss, and was quickly seized and dragged off into the darkness. The others didn’t even attempt to resist. The poison was beginning to take effect, and just to keep moving required all their remaining strength as their stomachs began to cramp and their heads began to spin. But the fires grew closer, and as the slope began to flatten out, Steinthor began to believe they might actually make it to the top.
The wolves falling back in front of him abruptly parted like water striking a large rock in the middle of a river. To Steinthor’s astonishment, he found himself facing a large Aalvarg in fully human form, standing nearly as tall as Steinthor himself despite its bare feet. In the light of the flames, he could see the man-thing was wearing an ill-fitting breastplate, underneath which it wore nothing but tattered rags. It held no weapon, nor did it appear to have any about its hairless body, which was lean, but powerful. It was flanked by others also wearing human shape, but none of them were as tall as it was.
“Sigskifting!” he heard someone behind him exclaim. Skinchanger.
“I permit you to come, warrior,” growled the big sigskifting in a gravelly voice. “There will be no more manflesh until we cross the great waters.”
Steinthor laughed. It was a cold, mirthless laugh, but it took the Aalvarg by surprise.
“Død for ulvene!” he shouted, and attacked.
In normal circumstances, he might have had the sigskifting, but wounded and poisoned as he was, his reactions were too slow. The big creature easily evaded his thrust and smashed its left fist into the side of Steinthor’s head, sending him sprawling to the ground. His men rushed past him, but they were immediately beset on every side, as the wolves tore them to pieces, howling triumphantly all the while. Steinthor pushed himself up to his knees, but before he could regain his feet, a violent spasm gripped his innards and he collapsed again, convulsing.
There was a growl in his right ear and then he was shoved over onto his back, his arms flopping weakly above his head. He felt heat on his cheek and a heavy panting, but his sight was failing and even the fires were growing dim. Then the face of the sigskifting appeared, practically nose to nose. The creature’s face was still human, but it was changing, elongating. Mottled fur sprouted from its skin and its teeth yellowed and grew longer. But Steinthor could still just make out words underneath the guttural growling.
“I’m going to rip your throat out and eat your guts, Man! By the time I shit you out, you and all your tribe will be forgotten forever!”
“You’ll be shitting naught but blood if you’re lucky!” Steinthor spat his last defiance just as the monster howled and clamped down on his exposed throat.
Poisoned blood sprayed from his punctured jugular and his legs kicked frantically in his death throes, but Steinthor didn’t feel any pain. His eyes widened, not in death, but amazement, as he saw a bright light descending rapidly from the black skies above. The light transformed into a hand, a slender female hand stretching out towards him, and even as he died, he exulted in the certainty that when Skuli Skullbreaker finally arrived in the Hall of Heroes, he, Steinthor Strongbow, would be there waiting.
Skuli
The sea swells were gentle, but the hearts of the men who rode them were heavy. Dawn had broken under a cloud-filled sky, which they all knew meant the friends they’d left behind in Raknarborg were now dead. It was one thing to salute the courage of a man going off to face his fate with a brave heart, but another to realize the emptiness of the knowledge that one would never see his face again. Skuli sat in the prow of the boat, wrapped in the thick wool blanket under which he’d slept the night before. A few fat drops of water clung to it, but for the most part it was dry thanks to the relative calm of the sea. He found himself thinking about the Strongbow, part of him wishing he’d stayed behind to die at his friend’s side, but another part feeling relieved to know that he was still alive. And with that feeling of relief came shame.
Someone slapped him on the back. It was Mord Redcheek, his disloyal second-in-command, who’d come forward to join him.
“Don’t be looking so gloomy now, Skullbreaker. They died well. And we’ll see them again soon enough, I reckon.”
“Aye,” Skuli said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He saw the Redcheek’s hands were red and chapped, and he was rubbing them together as if to warm them. “Were you at the steerboar
d?”
“Not much steering to do. The winds took us clear.”
“You’ll want some sleep, then.”
“Thought I’d see how you were doing first. With any luck, it will be a grey day. I can’t sleep when the damn sun is bright on the waves.”
Skuli painfully extended his legs and stared at them. They throbbed with a dull, bone-deep pain, but that was nothing new. At the moment, the stiffness from spending the night with his legs curled up actually hurt worse than the still-healing wounds in his chest and shoulder. He grunted and massaged his aching muscles.
“I’ve had worse. Just need a few days to let it heal. It’s not like we’re going to be walking anywhere soon.”
“We’ll want to land in a day or two. Keep the butts full. No sense in drawing them dry if we don’t have to.”
Skuli nodded. They would want to be sure they were sufficiently provisioned for a south crossing at all times. A thought occurred to him. “Do you think the wolves plan to cross the sea?”
“Would have saved us considerable trouble if they had in the first place. That, or we should have run sooner and left the damned Isles to them at the start.”
“We didn’t know they were so many. No one did.”
Not until it was far too late. Skuli closed his eyes and listened as the sail rustled and the sea slapped against the sides of the longboat as it cut smoothly through the waves. The wind was moderate, but it was mostly an east wind and it pushed them along at a healthy rate. But to where? They did not know with any certainty that the home of the cursed wolf-demons was on the big island, it was little more than instinct that drew them there. If only they knew when and where the wolves had first shown their ugly furred faces, then they would know where to go! But even after decades of unending war and steadily being slaughtered and pushed east, they were as ignorant as their fathers had been.
The Redcheek clapped him on the shoulder. “The men are all glad you’re here. Just think what a saga it will make!”
“We have no skald. Who will sing it?” He stared at a gull as it dove down towards the surface, presumably having spotted a fish, but came up with nothing in its yellow beak. “I wonder if that is how they were able to overcome us so easily?”
“Because we have no skalds?”
“No.” Skuli shifted his weight and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. With the heavy grey clouds overhead, it would not warm up until the sun climbed higher behind them. Even so, they did not look like rain. “Because we have not the art of writing like the southerners do. You saw how they planned their every move, how they kept track of the enemy numbers.”
“They still fled across the sea, for all their art.”
“One of their mages told me that an army of Aalvarg once crossed the sea, in his grandfather’s grandfather’s day. They defeated them, destroyed them utterly. And yet we, who have freely reaved their coasts for centuries, were defeated. There is a reason for that, Mord Redcheek.”
“Ah, there’s a reason for everything, Skullbreaker. But it will do no harm to think more on it. We’re not going to retake our islands tomorrow.”
“No. How are we for food?”
The Redcheek laughed. “This is not the first time I’ve reaved. We’ve stores a-plenty, dried cod and herring, flatbread, and we’ll hunt once we get to land. And we can always eat wolves.”
“I’ve tried it.” Skuli grimaced. “Foul and stringy. Worse than they smell. Only good for soup, if that.”
The Redcheek laughed again, slapped him on the back, and made his way aft. Skuli stared moodily out over the waves, wondering if he was making a mistake not simply ordering the longboat south, to join Ingoberg and the rest of his surviving people. At least he knew Brynjolf and Fjotra were faring well; if nothing else, his decision to send them south to the King had proven to be a wise one.
The Dalarn would survive. There were other clans and families who had crossed the sea sooner, of course, but they were scattered everywhere from northern Savondir to the western coast of Selenoth. How many there were, no one could say. Single families had begin fleeing even in his father’s time, and he knew of at least four clans that had crossed the White Sea in their entirety after the Aalvarg onslaught had begun in earnest.
Cowards, he had scorned them then. But by now, they might be well established and secure in the south, while the remnants of the Fifteen Clans were entirely reliant upon the dubious mercy of an erstwhile victim and enemy. He snorted, wondering what his ancestors would make of a world in which their longtime hunting grounds had become a refuge for their children’s children. If they were looking on, from Hell or Hall, no doubt they scorned him and his generation for weaklings.
Well, he would show them otherwise. He had a ship with a good name and a crew of killers. What more did a reaver king need? He was Bági Ulfs, he had killed many wolves, more wolves than any man before him, and he would kill many more before he fell. And then, he promised himself, I will not slink into the feast, but I will enter with my head held high, so that Halfrødr and the Strongbow will feel no shame to greet me or to welcome me as their comrade-in-arms.
The wind and the salt were stinging his eyes, he noticed, as he ran his hand over his face. How long had it been since he’d been reaving? He’d forgotten how the sea cold penetrated to the bone; it made an old wound he’d taken in his left arm, a slash from an Aalvarg’s jaws that had ripped it open from wrist to elbow, ache even though it was nothing more than a thick white line running down his arm.
He heard someone behind him and turned around to see Erlind Two-Dagger clambering over a strut, holding out one of his famous daggers with a blackened strip of fish that still had steam rising off impaled on it.
“Diarf caught ’em last night,” he explained. “Thought you might do with a bit o’ breakfast.”
Skuli nodded his thanks and took the dagger, then gingerly took a bite. Not only was the flesh piping-hot, but he’d once seen a man stab himself through the roof of his mouth when the longship slammed against the trough of a wave. And then there was the issue of picking out the sharp little bones too. The cod was a little undercooked and he had to spit out several bones, but the welcome heat warmed his gullet all the way down to his belly.
The wiry Two-Dagger, one of the Redcheek’s men, sat there quietly as he ate, content to stare out in the direction of the islands. They couldn’t be seen from the ship, not in this grey weather, but to an experienced seaman, they were obviously there all the same. If the east wind held, it would be three days before they’d come within sight of the Hovedmand, the biggest and westernmost island, and a fourth before they would make land on its further side.
The fish eaten and his hunger sated, he handed the dagger back to Two-Dagger, who leaned over the side and rinsed the blade in the salt water to remove the remains of the fish, then carefully dried it with a small cloth he kept tucked in his belt.
“Don’t drop it now,” Skuli told him.
Two-Dagger smiled faintly, gave the blade one last polish, and returned it to its scabbard. “The Redcheek always says salt water is bad for the metal, but seems to me blood is just as salty. I think this is not the last time I must clean my knife on this voyage.”
He nodded to Skuli, then made his way back to his place in the rear of the ship. A good lad, Skuli thought, and a reliable fighter. Of course, all of them were, or they would not have survived this long. Indeed, there may never have been a crew of such killers in all the history of the Dalarn. He looked back out over the swells and prayed silently to the Aldaföðr, to the Valföðr, to the Father of the soon-to-be slain, that he would give these men deaths worthy of the mightiest saga.
Behind him, he heard one of the younger men lift his voice in a familiar refrain. He smiled and decided he would take it for an omen.
Tonight we will the wolfsblood shed
Strike them down and strike them dead.
Is that a dog? No! Nothing more
Than one more wolf-spawned demon whore!
Unfortunately, on the third day the wind shifted to the north, so it took five days before they reached the western end of the Hovedmand. The weather had held, mostly, and they had put to land twice, once on each of the intervening islands, to hunt and water. The men were in good spirits, especially after Skeggi Hjaltisson managed to bring down a pair of deer with his bow. They saw no sign of the Aalvarg, although they did twice see the grim sight of a burned-out and abandoned harbor town that had been sacked in years past by the monsters in the distance. Skuli had been tempted to go investigate, but the Redcheek convinced him otherwise. First, if there were any Aalvarg in the villages, they almost certainly would see them approaching from the sea, and more importantly, there would no doubt be similar sites once they reached the main island, where the two largest villages in the Isles had been situated.
There were eighteen villages marked on the old leather map the Redcheek carried. There were no names, just crude drawings of buildings that mostly looked like houses, except for one that appeared to be a tower of sorts, perhaps even a castle. It was the Redcheek’s notion that they might find some clue about the wolves in either the larger villages or the castle—if it was indeed a castle. As the ever-dour Gudrik Glum observed, given its position on the coast, it might be nothing more than a watchtower built to let the nearby villagers keep an eye out for returning reavers.
“We don’t want to sail too far north. If they’ve got eyes in the tower, they’ll be able to guess where we’re going. We should make land to the south of the big village there.” The Redcheek indicated the large house that was closest to the tower. “We can grab a few of them, find one who talks, and figure out the lay of the land.”
“Then go overland to the tower?” Gudrik sounded dubious. But then, he usually did.
“Probably not, but we don’t know we’re going there yet,” Skuli said. “First we’ll search the village. For all we know, it may be empty. The important thing is that we keep the ship safe. If we lose it somehow, they’ll be able to hunt us down and there will be no escape. Mord, pick two skeleton crews of eight men. They will join Surdaember and Jorund sleeping at sea every night.”