by Greg Sisco
But the Viking who killed Eleanor, the one who’d led the massacre of her family, he’d had a different shield. There was an emblem on it he’d painted himself. The same emblem that was on the dragonboat sitting here on the shore. The boat had been given a name, and it was painted on the side in Nordic, and Tyr thought he might have understood the language well enough to figure it out on his own, but the drawing was enough to make it clear regardless.
The boat was called The Black Rose.
Odin was not quite so bothered as Tyr over what had happened, and Loki seemed only mildly peeved, as though he’d been double-jumped at checkers. So when Tyr came back to the catacombs with a Viking prisoner and a brutal war story of his triumph over sixty Viking soldiers and the burning of their ships, complete with a plan to continue this bloodlust into the next few weeks, they were not as keen as he was.
“Harold, what’s wrong with you?” asked Odin. “This level of bloodshed is… We kill to feed, not for the joy of it. What is it you’re hoping to achieve?”
“Father, you and I witnessed what these men are capable of. They are not worthy of life. We have the means to fight them.”
“And if we do, if we hunt them and kill them, what makes us any different than the ones who killed Eleanor?”
“We’re not human!” said Tyr as though Odin’s question were foolish. “We’re beasts, gods, another plane of existence entirely. We can see things from a greater perspective and seek to better the world.”
“Better it by means of brutality and slaughter?”
“Yes. Exactly. Is there anything in the Augury that says we shan’t kill anyone we wish? That says we have no right to judge which men live and which die?”
“No, but I think you might find it in the Ten Commandments.”
It was Loki who answered, not Tyr. “The Bible was written by humans. If we want to hold stock in what the Augury says—to claim it’s written by members of our own race, a race that is higher than mankind—then it holds true that the Bible was written by lower beings. We are either gods or men. If we are men then perhaps the Bible can be our guide, but the Augury does not apply to us. And if we are gods, then the reverse is true.”
“John, I am surprised,” said Odin to Loki. “You hardly knew the woman in question and you would give up the path of Christ to avenge her?” There would come a time when Loki’s desire to kill would surprise no one.
“I would give up the path of Christ either way,” said Loki. “I would avenge this woman because it is what Harold wants and he is my brother.” He smiled at Tyr, who smiled back.
“God is for mortals,” said Tyr. “For us there is no Heaven nor Hell except what is here for us on Earth. There is no higher plane to reach. We are the higher plane. What we have is each other and the others of our kind. That is all.”
Odin sighed and shook his head. “Say we pursue this line of thought; what follows from here?”
“I know where The Black Rose is,” said Tyr, “and the monster who slew Eleanor will be on it when they leave, and we will wait for him there. We will dress in Viking clothing and take shelter as near the Viking camp as possible. The prisoner I’ve brought speaks Norse. He will teach us as much of the language as we can learn until the time comes when the members of The Black Rose return. When they come for their ship, we will board with them and kill them at sea.”
“And if they leave at day as they most certainly will?”
“I don’t know. Then I suppose there’s nothing we can do. But it’s no excuse not to try.”
There was a long silence before Loki said, “We would have to bend more rules, but maybe there is something we can do.”
It was mid-afternoon when Ragnar and his friends reached the shore. They’d deserted the other men during battle and were on their own again. Most of the others were dead—maybe all of them, for all they knew.
Vali was dead. Stabbed through the chest by an Englishman. There were only four in their crew now, and things weren’t looking hopeful for Eilif. He’d been hit in the shin with an arrow and they’d amputated his leg a few nights prior, cauterizing the limb using the flat edge of Ragnar’s axe and the heat of a campfire. Ragnar and Gunnar had to help him walk today and he hung his head and whined that he wasn’t going to make it.
Rounding out the group was the sixteen-year-old Helgi, who, though he’d seen no physical harm, had become the blubbering, hysterical member of the group. Vali was his older brother and Helgi had been standing next to him when the enemy soldier stabbed him. It wasn’t hard to see it was ripping him apart.
“What… the fuck…” said Ragnar when they came through the woods and saw the beach.
The four of them stopped walking and stared. The beach was painted with blood, littered with the bodies of of their brothers, and most of the thirty boats they’d left were gone. Some of them were charred wrecks washed up on the shore. They’d been fools to attack England. All over the country Viking men were dying at the hands of the English.
“Let’s go,” said Helgi. “We’ll take one of the boats and leave with the four of us.”
“Four of us will never get a boat back to Norway. Especially not with Eilif in this condition.”
“I’ll be—” Eilif started, but he exhausted himself after two words and trailed off. What he had meant to say was ‘I’ll be as much help as I can.’
“Be that as it may, I don’t see another option. Do you?” asked Gunnar. “It’s either that or sit here on the shore and hope more of our people return before the English come finish us off. Is that what you want to do?”
“Damn it, I don’t know. Let’s get to the boats and figure it out from there.”
They rushed across the beach to where the last four boats were. Among them was The Black Rose.
“Would you look at that,” said Gunnar. “Still standing.”
“A sign from the gods!” shouted Ragnar. “We’re not going to die today.”
“Are we going to go, or are we going to wait?”
“Fuck it. Let’s shove off. My spirit is restored. We can’t lose.”
“Soldiers! You’re alive!” a voice said. “Thank the gods.” It was a bearded man in his forties. He had been sitting against the hull of their ship, asleep, and the boys had assumed he was as dead as the rest of their brothers in arms.
“Well shit, it’s good to see somebody is alive here. Come on, old man.”
“Pleased to meet you, boys,” said the older man. “My name is Bork.”
“Man, we ain’t got time for fuckin’ formalities, man. Let’s get the fuck outta here!” said Helgi, in Old Norse of course.
“Yeah, I think we should go, dude,” said Ragnar. “We got our asses handed to us out there. Everybody’s fuckin’ dead. It looks like you guys saw the same shit here on this beach.”
“It’s safe,” said Bork. “This happened days ago. But we can’t leave now.”
“Why not, man? Why fuckin’ not? It’s a fuckin’ death sentence to stay here, man,” said Helgi.
“There are no supplies in the boats,” said Bork, and everyone froze.
“Aw fuck. Aw, fuck, man. We’re all gonna fuckin’ die, man. That’s it. We’re fuckin’ dead. ‘Come join the army. Learn to be a man.’ I don’t want to be a fucking man anymore, man. I wanna go home.”
“Calm down, Helgi. Get it together. We’ll figure this out.”
“You don’t have to worry,” said Bork. “When the English took the camp, they destroyed all our supplies. And it’s true, with the five of us it would take weeks to make it home and we’d be lucky to make it at all. With no food and water, our chances are zero. But it so happens I’ve had this conversation already with three other soldiers who fought bravely beside me and made it back to the beach with me just last night. They’re out gathering food and water now. When they return, there will be eight of us. Eight of us can handle the boat, and with food and water we can survive long enough to make it home.
“We’re gonna make it,” said Ragna
r after a long pause. “We’re gonna live, dudes. We’re gonna fucking live!” He raised his hands and howled at the sea.
Knock, knock, knock.
“They’re here.”
The house where the Brothers were hiding was down the beach from the camp and through the woods. It was empty, abandoned. It wasn’t well kept and it was a bit of a schlep, but otherwise it was a perfect lodging and they hadn’t had to kill anyone for it. It even had a cellar, which was preferable.
Odin opened the door to the basement and let Bork in. “They’re waiting for us at the camp?” he asked in Norse.
Bork had been giving them Norse lessons eight hours a day for three weeks now. They’d done everything they could to learn, but they certainly weren’t speaking it like natives.
“I did as you told me and informed them you were gathering food and water. They’re awaiting your return with impatience.”
“Did they come with the others? By the thousands?”
“Luck is on your side. Just four of them came. But they made their way to The Black Rose as I slept, and one had the emblem on his shield and a scar on his face as you described.”
“You have done great work for us, Bork. We thank you.”
“I’ve upheld my end of the bargain. Now you must give me immortality.”
“In time. First you get aboard that ship with us and when I see the man is the one we want, then you will have your reward. But not until he draws his final breath.”
“I don’t like this. How do I know you won’t kill me when you kill them? I’ve trusted you up to this point. Why can’t you trust me that they’re waiting for you and make me immortal now?”
“You’ve trusted us because you haven’t had a choice. We spared your life when we took the beach, and we placed our faith in you to halt our friends from departing without us. It’s us who have trusted you.”
“You spared my life because you needed me. And you put faith in me to stop them because you had no choice. That’s not trust.”
“Then it’s lack of choice and that’s what both of us have. We’ll uphold our end of the bargain after the Vikings who killed our friend are dead, and that’s that.”
“I still don’t like it. Your Norse is shit, by the way. When we get back there, you let me do all the talking.”
“We will. Why don’t you head back to camp, Bork? Don’t keep our company waiting. We’ll meet you in a few hours. I’ll bring the jars of water, and Harold will bring the sack of food, and John will bring the other sack.”
“There you are, boys. I was beginning to get worried,” Bork said cheerfully when Odin, Tyr, and Loki arrived on the beach where the ships were.
“We have food,” said Loki, who had managed to absorb the most Norse of the three.
The Viking men rushed to meet the Brothers, who were dressed in Viking soldiers’ uniforms they’d taken from the dead in the woods before they dragged the rest of the bodies onto the beach for spectacle. Ragnar and Gunnar were excited to meet them, shaking their hands and introducing themselves excitedly. The Brothers tried to keep quiet.
“This is Ingvar, Kari, and Erp,” said Bork of Tyr, Odin, and Loki, who were still going by Harold, John, and Jacob.
“Water?” asked Odin, holding out a jar. Ragnar took it and guzzled some. He passed it to his friends.
“Conserve that,” said Bork. “We have a long journey ahead and only so many supplies to last us.”
The soldiers continued to pass the jar around and drink conservatively from it, with the exception of the terrified Helgi, who drank quite liberally.
“It’s gotten late,” said Gunnar. “Should we set out now, or should we wait till morning?”
“We should go. When we were gathering food we could hear the English nearby,” said Loki, and if what he had said were not so unsettling to the Viking boys, they might have commented on his accent and asked him where he was from.
“Let’s go, dudes. I don’t wanna fuckin’ die,” said Helgi.
Everybody piled onto The Black Rose except Loki, Tyr, Ragnar, and Gunnar, who pushed the boat out to sea as far as they could before they climbed aboard. They all grabbed oars and rowed out into the ocean, laughing and cheering themselves on, thankful they’d escaped with their lives—or, in the case of the Brothers, thankful they hadn’t.
“We sure are lucky we found you boys,” said Ragnar. “We’d have been fucked without you.”
Tyr nodded.
“What am I saying, though? You’d have been fucked without us too. Four people just ain’t getting one of these ships back to Norway without divine intervention.”
Again, Tyr nodded.
“Where are you from?” asked Gunnar, directing the question at Loki. “You’ve got a peculiar dialect I can’t place.”
“Out west,” said Loki.
“Where out west? I’m from out west, but I can’t say I’ve met anyone who talks like you.”
“Forget it.”
Helgi couldn’t explain why he suddenly had the urge to piss himself. They were a kilometer out to sea now and it was time to be celebrating, laughing, getting to know new friends, but these three mysterious soldiers didn’t appear interested in any of that.
“Did you guys see some real shit out there?” asked Eilif, who’d been lying down quietly having exhausted himself after five minutes of paddling. It was the first thing he’d said in days that wasn’t ‘My fucking leg,’ or ‘I need to rest,’ or ‘Can we slow down?’
Tyr nodded. Yes. They’d seen some real shit.
“I don’t blame you for not wanting to talk,” said Eilif. “We saw some shit too. I lost my goddamned leg to an arrow and I never even found out where it came from or who shot it. Helgi over there saw his brother killed in front of him.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t talk,” said Helgi. “We’ve all been through hell. Maybe we should just keep rowing.”
“The only thing is,” said Eilif, uninterrupted, “given the shit we’ve been through and the shit we can assume you’ve been through, it’s going to be hard for us to work together if we can’t trust each other. All Gunnar wanted to know was where you’re from, because you talk a little weird. But you start getting defensive and we get uncomfortable and then there’s distrust between everyone and that’s not healthy. So why don’t you just answer his question?”
Bork jumped in. “All right, I think we should all take a second to just calm down.”
“I want to know where this guy’s from,” said Eilif, a bit more aggressively.
“So do I,” said Ragnar.
“I’m going to agree we need to calm down,” said Gunnar. “I meant it innocently. If he doesn’t want to answer, that’s his business. Let’s not start making enemies. We’re all in this together.”
“Yeah, so let’s fucking open up to each other, right?” said Ragnar.
“Guys, guys, seriously,” said Helgi. “This is getting fucked, all right? It got real fuckin’ ugly out there, but we can put it behind us now, you know? We made it, thanks to the gods, and—”
“We are the gods,” said Odin.
Nobody said another goddamn word. The looks on the soldiers’ faces varied from puzzlement (Gunnar) to terror (Helgi). The boat rocked on the tide and nobody paddled or spoke. They only sat quietly in the wind.
“I happen to have some friends in a small village in Yorkshire,” said Odin, “friends who were killed not too long ago. Seems a few Viking soldiers broke into their home, killed women and children and innocent farmers, raped women of all ages and cut their heads off. Only person they left alive was a baby who couldn’t have been more than a few months old, and I’m surprised they did that, frankly.”
“What is this? Who are you?”
“Odin,” said Odin, for the first time. “I am your god. And I do not forgive you for what you have done.”
Gunnar was the first to stand and raise his axe and Ragnar followed suit. When Gunnar took his first swing at Odin, Odin dodged and caught his arm, then buried his o
wn axe in Gunnar’s shoulder at the neck. Gunnar hit the deck in shock, and wouldn’t be getting up.
As soon as Gunnar had gone down, Ragnar struck Odin in the side with his axe and sent him staggering back toward the stern with Loki and Tyr and Bork. Tyr caught Odin and helped him to stand.
“I didn’t realize Odin bled,” said Ragnar as Helgi raced to cower at the bow and Eilif struggled to stand.
Odin stripped off his armor as the soldier stood dumbly. The blood ran down his naked skin from his chest to his thigh, but the flow had slowed already. He took one of the jars of water and poured it down his side and when he washed the blood away there was no wound.
“What… What…” Ragnar tried to speak but he had no words. He had begun to believe.
“It’s true!” said Helgi. “They are the gods and they’ve come to punish us for what we’ve done. No, no. Oh shit, we’re doomed.”
Bork couldn’t watch. He was pressed against the stern with his head turned skyward, looking out to sea. He did his best to ignore the sounds of his fellow soldiers’ screams, their cries for forgiveness, for mercy.
“When your victims cried out for mercy you laughed and mocked them,” said Tyr. “You will have no more mercy than you gave them.”
Once this had been said, an odd calm came over Helgi. He knelt before Tyr and exposed his neck willingly, convinced of the vampire’s godly stature as Tyr drew back his axe. Helgi died a noble death, a warrior’s death, and it was perhaps what was best for him following the emotional damage he’d taken at war.
Ragnar got it the worst. Tyr and Odin stuck axes through his hands and spears through his calves, pinning his legs to the deck and his hands to the gunwale. Eilif came hopping at Loki with his axe in his hand, but Loki cut his remaining leg off and he was left bleeding and wailing on the deck.