by Peter Fox
‘Caelin.’
The hoarse whisper came from somewhere to Rathulf’s right, and the young Norseman let out an involuntary yelp of fright. He stumbled away from the direction of the sound, his feet crunching loudly on the hard snow. He backed straight into a pillar of ice, and there he stopped, panting in terror as he searched frantically for the beast that had called to him. He stood like that for a long time, so long that he eventually became aware his breathing had slowed, and his mouth was not so dry. His eyes had also become better accustomed to the dark, and he could now make out the lines of a distant mountain range rising into the eerie gloom, their upper reaches hidden by the ever-present cloud. He also realised that all around him countless sharp-edged crevasses gashed the icy plain on which he stood, as though a giant bear had slashed the ground with its huge claws.
‘Caelin.’
Rathulf snapped around with a start. A young man stood so close to him that the Norseman felt warm breath on his cheek. Rathulf shouted an oath and tried to run, but his legs refused to obey him. Instead, he stood frozen to the spot, forced to look into the stranger’s ashen face. The ghost stared straight through him. He seemed completely unaware of Rathulf’s presence, but it was to Rathulf that he held out his gashed and bloodied palms, pleading for help.
Without thinking or knowing why, Rathulf lifted his hand to the stranger’s shoulder, but the skin felt cold to the touch. He snatched his fingers away in fright. The stranger continued to stare unblinkingly at Rathulf, his hazel eyes showing no sign of recognition or understanding. Rathulf tried to tear himself away from that terrible gaze, but instead, he found himself drawn into it, sucked down into the stranger’s soul so that he might know something of his suffering. Images of another place, damp, green, and alive began to form in his mind.
Rathulf saw a small, windswept beach, and the smell of the sea was strong in his nostrils. There was a mist which thinned briefly so that for a moment Rathulf caught a glimpse of a low headland that loomed like a crouching boar to his right. Closer to hand he saw what seemed to be the wreckage of a boat, and beyond the flotsam a person lay face-down on the shore, their legs half submerged in the shallows. The sea itself was as calm as a tarn, and tiny waves flopped onto the sand in a rhythmic swish and hiss. Somewhere in the unseen hinterland, a curlew piped.
Rathulf moved over to the body that lay on the sand. He crouched down and rolled it over. He recoiled in horror when he saw his own face. A dark, bloody stain marked his chest, and he stared up at himself through lifeless eyes.
Rathulf backed away, but surrounding him were more bodies lying on the sand and floating in the water nearby. He turned and ran; fast and hard, away from that place, away from the dead man who was himself. Abruptly the scene changed, and Rathulf was dashing down a narrow passageway between two rows of thatch-roofed houses. They were ablaze, and Rathulf felt his skin searing in the heat. Suddenly he came upon a wall of stone that rose high into the fog, blocking his escape. He heard shouting all around him and from above came the chilling hiss of arrows as they thrummed through the air. In a panic he looked from left to right, wondering which way he should turn. In the end, he chose left and ran along the wall, desperately searching for a way through, but the stone just coursed on and on, whilst the smoke became heavier and thicker and the screams louder and nearer. His eyes stung, and he coughed as soot and fumes filled his straining lungs. Suddenly he burst through the choking smoke to find himself back on the desolate plains of Niflheim. The smoke and heat had gone, and instead a wide ravine had appeared in front of him. On the opposite side sat a large, grey wolf. The gash in the ice seemed to draw all light into its blue-green depths, and Rathulf quickly stepped away from the precipice, terrified. But the ice under his heels crumbled and he swung around to find that another crevasse lay behind him.
The wolf dropped its head, and suddenly the ice at Rathulf’s feet opened up. Rathulf sprang desperately towards solid ground, but the ice continued to split in a series of loud, cracking retorts as the ravines spread and opened into a single, vast chasm beneath him.
Rathulf fell, down past the smooth, opaque blue of the upper reaches into black, fathomless depths. He tumbled in a dizzying spiral past earthen walls lined with jagged stumps of timber that clawed outwards and upwards like talons to gouge at his skin and eyes. Faces flashed by as he fell: Leif, Thorvald, Helga, Sigvald and countless other unrecognisable souls. Shards of ice stung his face and hands, then without warning, he hit the ground, and everything went black.
✽ ✽ ✽
Sigvald stole one last look at the valley before instructing his men to take up their oars, a niggling sense of foreboding buzzing about in his head like a persistent fly. How could I have been so mistaken, he wondered, annoyed with himself. I am never wrong. Not in matters like this at least. The chieftain took hold of the tiller and sighed. I just don’t like being shown up as a fool, he told himself, and that’s what has happened here. He gave the order to move off.
They made their way back down the fjord, Bardi’s longship taking the lead. The rippling black waters that spread in their wake glistened like oil in the starlight, and suddenly Sigvald felt cold. He stared back over his shoulder at the valley. Its shape and form were so familiar, but where was the homestead? If this was Thorvald’s garth, the little huddle of buildings should be over there on the rise to the left of the beck, and the boat-shed should be off to the right, over there down by the shore.
Sigvald blinked. Was that the outline of a building he could see, or was it a rock or some other trick of the light? He frowned at the dark shape, challenging it to dissolve, but the shadowy form remained solid. Sigvald’s fingers tightened on the smooth wood of the tiller. It can’t be the boatshed, he thought. This can’t be Thorvald’s farm. He looked again at the place where the house ought to be, but all he saw was snow.
Snow. Mountains of snow.
‘Mother of Thor!’ Sigvald gasped, the realisation bursting into his skull like a thunderclap. Day after day it had fallen from the sky until it had seemed their whole world was comprised of it.
‘Stop. STOP!’ Sigvald barked at the men, pulling hard on the steering board. Both Alrik and Ingrith lost their balance and tumbled backwards on top of each other, and the slaves cried out in protest as the oars sprang from their grip when the Vixen dipped her nose and lurched around. ‘Alrik,’ Sigvald called, his tone demanding instant compliance, ‘douse the fires. I can’t see a thing with all that light in my face.’
Helga leapt to her feet. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
The nearest brazier exploded into a furious cloud of hissing steam and ash as Alrik threw water onto the flames. A second eruption echoed the first, and another cloud billowed over the decks from the boiling coals, engulfing the ship and its occupants. Shouts of alarm rang from Bardi’s drakkar, but Sigvald ignored the calls. He pointed across the water to the far side of the gravel beach. ‘Over there, Helga. Can you see it?’
Helga peered through the clearing steam and shook her head. ‘What? What should I be seeing?’
Ingrith too looked in the same direction, but she shook her head, not understanding what it was her father was trying to show them.
‘By the shore,’ Sigvald urged. ‘Look!’
‘The boatshed!’ Alrik burst out, recognising the shape immediately. ‘But where’s the house?’ He dropped the bucket he had been holding and ran to the shield rail, gazing anxiously towards the shore.
‘Rathulf!’ Ingrith cried, then she clapped a hand over her mouth in dismay.
Sigvald looked up at the steep walls that enclosed the little vale, already knowing the answer. It had been there all the time, in his vision and in reality. A wide swathe of ruffled white snow flanked on either side by the lumpy forms of buried trees. Only now that the fires had been extinguished could he see the path of the avalanche in the pale starlight.
‘By the Blizzards of Vigrid,’ Sigvald swore, looking back down at the place where the house should be. He turned to
his slave master. ‘Gormond, get this ship moving.’
Sigvald drove the Vixen straight up onto the shore, and Alrik leapt down into the snow before the ship came to a halt. The boy surged up the slope, struggling through the deep snow, shouting Rathulf’s name again and again.
‘Stop all that yelling,’ Sigvald called after him in vain. ‘You’ll bring the rest of the mountain down on us.’
Alrik disappeared over the low rise that led up to the house, still shouting, then Ingrith sprang past her father and stumbled after her cousin, also calling Rathulf’s name.
‘Odin preserve us,’ Sigvald muttered, thrusting the gangplank over the side and running down to the ground. He threw a glance behind him to check that Helga and the others were following. Gormond had already begun to light torches. On the water beyond, Bardi had turned his ship around and was making for the shore at a fast pace.
‘Both of you, slow down.’ Sigvald called after the two youngsters. ‘Damn you. I don’t want you disturbing any signs.’
Sigvald reached the base of the slope just in time to hear a startled cry come from somewhere ahead, then Ingrith screamed. Sigvald ploughed on through the drifts after them, but when he crested the rise, neither of them were anywhere to be seen.
‘What the–?’ Sigvald said. ‘Where’d they go?’
Helga called at him to wait, but Sigvald pushed on, stumbling as he followed the furrow, clearly visible in the dim starlight. The pathway ended abruptly a short distance ahead. Sigvald let out a surprised grunt when he came upon a dark hole in the snow. Large enough to swallow a cart and rimmed with jagged teeth, a cavernous mouth gaped open at his feet. The side on which Sigvald stood fell away sheer, but the opposite edge sloped more gently down into the darkness. Sigvald dropped to his hands and knees and called down into the hole.
‘Alrik! Ingrith? Are you all right?’
There came a muffled scraping sound followed by a low curse. ‘Yes, we’re okay,’ came Alrik’s reply. ‘I’ve cut my elbow on something, but I’ll be all right. Ingrith landed on top of me, so she’s fine.’
Sigvald heard a huffy protest followed by Alrik’s laughter. ‘Well that serves you both right for running about like a pair of headless chickens, doesn’t it?’ the jarl scolded. ‘Can you see anything?’
More muffled sounds rose from the hole followed by a hollow thud then an expletive. ‘That was my head, in case you were wondering,’ Alrik said. ‘And no, we can’t see a thing. You couldn’t throw down a torch could you?’
Gormond and Helga arrived shortly afterwards, panting from their struggle through the thigh-deep snow. ‘They will have been crushed by the landslide, master,’ Gormond observed. ‘Nothing could have survived that.’
Sigvald ignored him, refusing to entertain that unthinkable possibility. He turned to his wife instead. ‘This hole was here already. Alrik and your daughter managed to fall into it of course.’ He grabbed the torch from his steward’s hand and held it up high so that they could better see. They all stared in dismay at the wreckage that lay before them.
The avalanche had clearly struck the house from the left, driving the wall inwards and compressing the building, but not so much that the house had been crushed altogether. That in itself was a good sign, but how had the hole appeared? A dark smudge of turf just beneath the surface of the snow marked the roofline, so the debris from the avalanche had lain no more than a foot or two above the roof’s apex. Most likely, the roof had fallen in during or soon after the avalanche. It was all covered with a thick layer of fresh snow, so it must have happened some while ago.
‘So, not as bad as we thought,’ Sigvald muttered. He instructed Gormond to drop another torch over the edge. ‘Look out below,’ Sigvald warned. ‘Here comes the light.’
The firebrand landed with a thud and a hiss on the snow below, and Alrik appeared moments later to retrieve it. Broken beams of timber, blocks of stone and lumps of ice and earth floated in and out of the guttering circle of light, casting distorted shadows as Alrik moved around the wreckage in search of his friend.
‘Can you see them?’ Sigvald called down anxiously.
‘No, not yet.’
‘They have to be in there,’ Sigvald muttered, leaning out over the lip for a better look.
‘Oh no!’ Ingrith’s muffled cry came from somewhere beneath them.
‘What is it?’ Sigvald demanded.
Ingrith didn’t reply. Moments later came another cry of distress, this time from Alrik.
‘I’m going down,’ Sigvald said to Helga and the others. The jarl hurried around to the snowy ramp that led into the wreckage, and half ran, half slid to the bottom. He found Alrik crouched in the corner opposite the remains of the front door. Ingrith stood next to him, tears running down her cheeks. ‘What is it?’ Sigvald asked.
Alrik pointed to the floor. A pool of dark, frozen blood stained the ground. Sigvald took a deep breath and looked into the gloom beyond, prepared for the worst. Was it Thorvald’s or Rathulf’s?
No one was there. Sigvald snatched the torch from his nephew’s hand and thrust it out in front of him. The space was empty. Yet someone had lain here; how else would the blood have come to be there? He bent down and scrambled around the edge of the room, ducking under fallen rafters and stepping over pieces of furniture and other debris. He completed a full circuit to find himself looking into his daughter’s tear-filled eyes.
‘They’re not here,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘We’ve already checked.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Sigvald muttered. ‘Where can they have gone?’
A cascade of snow from above signalled the arrival of Bardi and the others.
‘It appears I owe you an apology Sigvald,’ Bardi said, peering into the hole. ‘Have you found them yet?’ Concern hung heavy in the chieftain’s tone.
Sigvald looked up at the jarl and shook his head. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said, his voice flat.
‘What do you mean, gone?’ Helga demanded.
‘They’ve been taken,’ Alrik said, barely able to contain his distress. ‘By a Jötunn, or worse.’
‘Stop blubbering boy,’ Sigvald scolded, Alrik having given voice to his own fears. ‘We don’t know that. We just didn’t see them the first time.’
‘Lord?’ It was Gormond. He spoke in a whisper. ‘Look. Over there to your right.’
Sigvald turned to the place where Gormond pointed. His heart froze. A faint trail of smeared blood led up the icy ramp to the snow above.
‘Master Alrik is correct, Lord,’ Gormond continued. ‘That hole could only have been made by a giant or troll, burrowing its way into the house seeking food. That blood is a sure sign of it.’
Sigvald’s retort caught in his throat. He looked at the trail of blood with dread, picturing the slavering giant clawing its way hungrily through the snow and scratching about amid the wreckage in search of its victims. It had found food here; soft, human flesh, and like most scavengers of the night, had dragged them off to its lair to feed.
‘Mother of Thor,’ Sigvald murmured in dismay. That was no fair fate for any man, friend or foe. Had Thorvald and Rathulf been dead or alive when the monster had found them?
‘Lord?’ Gormond hadn’t finished. ‘It might still be nearby, along with its mate.’
‘The longships!’ Bardi exclaimed. ‘They’ll go for the slaves!’
Sigvald snapped his head up, fear catching his breath. Odin protect us, he thought. The steward is right. Row upon row of warm bodies sit at their oars, completely unprotected. Sigvald scrambled up the slope, but even as he pulled himself out onto the snow, he and the others heard a strange guttural cry, followed by the terror-stricken screams of the thralls.
✽ ✽ ✽
Rathulf woke with a start. He was surrounded by a heavy mist; cold, damp and impenetrable. Something tugged at his collar, choking him, and he heard hot, panting breaths roaring like a blacksmith’s bellows in his ear. Driven by terror, Rathulf tried to fight off whatever hideous thing ha
d found him, but no amount of shouting or eye gouging helped. He was doomed, soon to be eaten by a hungry monster of the night. Snow scraped beneath his body as he was dragged along in short bursts by the creature. Its bent, gangling body swayed awkwardly as it strained under its heavy load, and occasionally it turned its huge, dog-like head to look behind it to ensure that its meal remained alive and intact. Rathulf again tried to struggle, but his limbs refused to respond.
The choking hold on Rathulf’s throat ended abruptly as he was dumped on the ground. The Jötunn disappeared. Rathulf knew that he must be in a cave or overhang of some kind, but the salty smell of the sea and the sound of lapping water at first confused him. Then with a stab of dread, he realised that this was Náströnd; and that he had simply been passing through that other place on his way to his final destination here by the Shore of the Dead.
Soon afterwards Rathulf heard the Jötunn return, its breathing ragged and strained. It dragged another victim into the cave and dropped it beside Rathulf. The new arrival moaned and then fell silent. Feet crunched on the snow as the troll left again. How many people had it found? The answer came to Rathulf in a grim realisation: it must wait at the bottom of that chasm with scores of other monsters, fighting over the bodies of the dead that land there.
Rathulf drifted at the edge of consciousness, one moment starkly aware of the biting cold on his face, then in another he was being swept along by a current of memories and reflections that swirled about him in a disjointed kaleidoscope of his life. Some of the faces were familiar, others foreign. A kind-faced woman with gentle, brown eyes smiled down at him, and he knew this was his mother, but when he called to her she disappeared, and in her place came heat and smoke and the screams of many people, crying out in collective suffering. Other memories flashed by too fast to comprehend; some settled briefly then were gone, replaced by some other fragment of his life. At one point, Leif appeared in front of him, his bloodied and dirty face an odd pallor in the flickering orange light. He was speaking to Rathulf, his expression concerned, but the words made no sense, then he was gone, and darkness returned.