He knew not what he saw, only that they stared at him, hard and cruel, with yellow eyes. His vision darted from one to the next. The more he screamed, the more he saw.
He felt shame looking on one – a twisted, clutching creature, curled on itself, gnawing its knuckles. Another had a face drooping and sorrowful, its skin diseased and pitted as though poison corroded its flesh from the inside, a foul drool spilling from its cracked lips, and Erlan tasted bitterness on his own tongue.
His screams rose upward to the biggest of these shadow-fiends that paced along the beam, eyes fierce as lightning, lips peeled in a snarl, teeth jagged and broken. Staring at it, Erlan thirsted for blood and vengeance.
Another – the ugliest of these creatures – squirmed near the doorway. Its nose was cut away. Mucus streamed into its jutting mouth. Its eyes were crossed and its ears monstrously wide. His heart twisted, wringing out self-pity like a fetid slime for all the wrongs done to him.
There were others. One, sleek and smooth, pawing itself, eyes big and round and grasping. Another whose lips never ceased murmuring, with powerful hands circling its tail like a noose. Overwhelmed, Erlan tore his eyes away and looked down at Vargalf. But he too was changed, seeming taller, and his mouth gaped in strange yawning motions. The stench grew ranker still until Erlan became aware of another figure behind him.
A heavy cowl covered its face. The shade bent low and began to whisper. Vargalf listened, intent, while long, white fingers crept like spiders along his shoulders, up his neck, suddenly gripping his head and jerking it backwards. The shadow bent still lower, as though to kiss Erlan’s tormentor, but when their mouths were not quite touching, the shadow convulsed and began to vomit. Wave after wave of crimson slime gushed from the shadow’s throat and Vargalf swallowed it down like milk, swallowed it till it overflowed down his beard and ran down his chest. And then the shadow was spent and drew itself up tall again.
Vargalf was speaking, but Erlan heard only the roar of the flames and the sound of his own screaming, yet as he watched he saw clouds of scarlet smoke billowing from Vargalf’s mouth.
Erlan sensed the other shadow-creatures closing in, along the beam, down the chain, scuttling like roaches. They clung to him, swarmed over him, plucked at his eyes, squeezed his chest, snorted phlegm in his face. And always the heat of the fire was crushing him and crushing him. He longed for death, but more than anything feared that death would bring no relief.
Then, far above him, he saw something so bright it seemed to burn right through these shadows and brand his eyes with its blinding image. A pure light poured in through the smoke-hole, white as winter, driving back the darkness. The black creatures shrank back, their bodies dissolving into the retreating shadows in craven fear.
Erlan stopped screaming. At once the walls and rafters of the smokehouse returned to his vision. Even the bright light grew dim, shrinking into something solid. Something real.
For a second, it hung from the thatch engulfed by clouds of surging smoke. Then suddenly, it dropped, landing on the beam. The wood groaned in protest, and Erlan saw within the fading light the outline of a man.
‘Erlan!’
He stared, unable to believe what he saw. A man shouting his name. Or something like a man. It looked almost as wild and strange as the shadow-creatures it had driven away.
‘Erlan!’ He saw the ragged mess of hair and cursed the fire because he knew its heat had only driven him into a new place of torment, one where phantoms of relief came to taunt him.
That boy is dead. He saw only another shadow.
But then he heard Vargalf’s yell. ‘You!’
‘Erlan!’ the phantom cried again. This time he recognized Kai’s voice.
A stab of hope penetrated the heat and the pain and the torment. The little madman looked like he’d sprung from some grave but there he was, flesh and blood, a wide grimace cracked across his face, and bristling with steel.
From below came a long scrape of leather and iron as Vargalf unsheathed Wrathling.
‘Where did you spring from, weasel-shit?’ Vargalf snarled.
‘From Hel!’ yelled Kai. ‘She calls for you, devil!’ His arm fell like a hammer. The spear whipped through the roiling air. Kai bayed in triumph, sure he’d found his mark, but at the last blink, Vargalf lurched right. The point shot clean through cloak and tunic, slicing his shoulder.
Vargalf shrieked as the point impaled the floor behind him. He staggered backwards. His cloak was dangling from a single clasp. He tore it away angrily and readied his sword. But the boy was quicker.
Kai hit the ground hard, rolled, then found his feet before Vargalf had even taken a stand. Kai was screaming, a feral yell to rouse the dead and freeze the bones of the living, and before Vargalf had time even to raise his sword, Kai was on him, axe-blade scything at his bleeding shoulder. The overlord threw up a desperate guard and Wrathling rang with the blow.
Erlan was shouting Kai’s name, his pain forgotten. He saw only the fight below. Rage welled inside him – not the bitter, self-pitying anger of before, but a ravenous fury – at his tormentor, at the man turning his own ring-sword against his oath-brother. He thrashed around, helpless as a fish on a hook, his blistered legs kicking at the burning air. He hauled on his wasted arms, scrabbling to get a grip on the chain, ignoring the blood flecking his face and the blinding pain in his wrists. But his nails tore at the metal in vain.
Below, Kai threw himself at Vargalf. He was close enough to smell the bastard’s sweat. The axe was no bloody use this close. He dropped it and slammed his shoulder into Vargalf’s belly. The two of them went over, Vargalf winded. Kai went for his knife, grinding his fist into the other’s bloodied shoulder. Wrathling flew clear. Their feet kicked frenziedly at the box of firewood, knocking it over, scattering the logs with a loud clatter. Kai felt fingers strong as stone circle his wrist, holding his dagger-point in check.
But his other thumb had found Vargalf’s wound. He drove it in deep. Vargalf screamed. Kai thrust his head forward, snarling like a rabid dog, still unable to drive home his blade. Instead he lunged for the pale throat. Vargalf craned his head, trying to escape the slavering jaws, but then Kai’s tongue scraped stubble and he snapped his jaws shut.
Vargalf shrieked. Blood fizzed like rust on Kai’s tongue. He bit harder as they rolled across the floor towards the fire-pit. The heat surged beside them. He jerked his head and felt flesh tear. The overlord screamed again. Kai spat blood and sinew, baying with savage delight, his eyes whirlwinds of killing hunger, but Vargalf’s fingers were in his hair, winding into it. His scalp suddenly flared with pain as Vargalf tore away a clump of knotted strands. But Kai didn’t care. What was pain to him? He was a killer now, born for this.
They bumped against the edge of the fire-pit. Vargalf’s grip was unyielding, pushing Kai’s hand into the flames. Kai screamed at the scorching heat, dropping the dagger into the flaming coals.
Steel was gone. This would be settled by blood and bone now.
Kai bucked his scrawny torso, mad as a wild ox, smashing his skull into Vargalf’s face with a satisfying crunch. He grinned a bloody grin, sensing weakness, and lunged forward, hungry for more blood, and to finish this.
Above them, fury coursed like ice through Erlan’s veins. The air was filled with screams from below. But there was only one way to reach his brother.
Up.
He writhed so hard he bit his tongue and tasted blood. And with the taste a memory came, of the blood he had swallowed far below the earth in the Watcher’s cave. And suddenly his arms seemed to fill with darkness – with some primal strength dragged from the depths of those black caverns, the strength of the ice-giants of old, the strength of the wind and the earth and the ocean. A roar began far away in the lightless places where things long forgotten to the minds of men still dwelled. It swelled within him till his chest nearly burst and it broke from his mouth in an inhuman howl.
He reached for the chain, got a grip and, hand over bloodied hand, b
egan to climb.
Kai was in a clawing, snarling, gouging fight for his life. His boots scraped the floor, scrabbling for a hold, his scorched hand clamped on Vargalf’s throat. His nails had grown long and sharp. If he could hook a thumb under this bastard’s jawbone he’d rip it clean off, but still he couldn’t lose the overlord’s grip.
Vargalf’s nose was a bloody stream; his neck, a bloody maw. Kai snapped his teeth, looking for more, when Vargalf’s elbow slipped and their heads banged together. Kai saw his chance, lunged, felt cartilage between his teeth, jerked back. There was a ripping sound and he came away with an ear in his mouth. Vargalf shrieked and Kai spat bone and blood and spittle, spraying the overlord’s milk-white skin scarlet.
But Vargalf was far from done.
And suddenly Kai was on his back beside the fire, the wind knocked out of him. Vargalf got a knee up, pinning his right arm. Kai struggled in vain, his left hand still gripped in the iron fingers that had never let go, but the other hand was on his face. He felt a thumb close over his eye, saw only blackness, felt pressure build sickeningly inside his socket, braced himself for the pain...
Erlan reached the beam. Everything was red – his hands, the chain, the fire, the darkness. He hauled himself up. The chain went slack. From below came a sudden, heart-rending cry, answered by a thick, guttural laugh. Erlan looked down and saw Vargalf throw back his head in triumph and bury his hand in the fire. In an eye-blink, he’d ripped it clear, a shard of metal flashing in his hand. Flesh sizzled. Erlan jumped, but even as he fell he saw Vargalf burying the blade into Kai’s side.
Once.
Twice.
Then Erlan crashed onto them, knocking Vargalf away, sending the dagger skidding for the shadows.
Erlan thought nothing of his burnt skin, his mauled wrists, his wretched nakedness. His only thought was to grind the life out of that man. He leaped on him, his shackled fists smashing into Vargalf’s blood-slicked face. The overlord fell back, then rolled aside. Erlan scrambled after him, dragging his chain like a fire-worm’s tail.
He snatched his tunic and yanked hard. Vargalf flopped over. Erlan jammed his shackles under his chin, the metal biting into the wound Kai had inflicted. Vargalf groaned. Erlan answered with a madman’s laugh, filled with a strength he didn’t understand. Snot bubbled bloody from Vargalf’s nose and his dark eyes widened, panic-stricken.
But there was a sudden force crushing Erlan’s neck, cutting off his breath. He saw the chain in Vargalf’s hand. The overlord pulled. Erlan’s head snapped back, breaking his grip, his neck twisting crazily. He rolled with it and flipped onto his back. Vargalf was under him now, hands hauling like an ox on the metal noose around his neck. There was no air – only pain, only animal grunts, only pressure, as if his skull would explode any moment in a shower of brains and blood. Vision began to blur. His fingers tore at the links, his blistered heels raking at the hard-packed floor. The strange surge of strength was leaching out of him. It would be over soon. All Vargalf had to do was hang on.
Erlan kicked and skidded, desperate to get a grip. His sight was fading, the smoky rafters shrinking to blackness. He heard an ugly cackle, thick in Vargalf’s throat.
‘The – end – comes – fast – cripple!’
But this couldn’t be the end. This wasn’t the end. The strength that stretched from the dawn of men did not die here.
With one last, colossal effort, he smashed one heel and then the other into the packed mud. His crippled ankle shrieked with pain, a river of fire racing to his skull. But the floor gave and now he had a foothold. He shoved, shoved like he had to topple a mountain, shoved like he had to uproot Yggdrasil and every one of the Nine Worlds hanging from its boughs.
His head smashed like Thor’s hammer into Vargalf’s face. The choking pressure round his throat vanished and then he was beating back his head, again and again, smashing down with all his waning strength, driving the overlord’s nose back into his brain. He heard teeth splinter, cheekbones shatter and split. The chain hung slack and now, his throat freed, a scream of primal rage broke from his lips, a scream for survival, a scream for vengeance, a scream for thirst, for blood, for savage pain, for death.
He spun around and brought down his shackled fists with a crash, pounding again and again into the red pulp of fractured bone and blood and gristle that had once been Vargalf’s face. He pounded for Bodvar, for Rorik, for Sviggar, he pounded for Kai, pounded for himself, until his fists beat at nothing but the wet, red mud while the sound of his own mad scream rang in his ears.
‘Erlan.’ A weak voice. ‘Erlan...’ again. ‘He’s dead. Leave him. He’s dead!’
Finally the words penetrated the fog of blind fury. His fists slackened, making limp, wet slaps against the ground, and then... ceased.
He slumped back, pain crashing in on all sides at once. His head hung like a dead flower. His face was a black and red smear, his hair a snarl of sweat and blood and filth.
‘Erlan.’ He shook his head, eyes blinking as if he saw nothing. ‘Erlan!’
He looked over at Kai and at last he saw him. The lad was on his back, head tilted, a dark scarlet smear daubing one cheek. Where his eye should have been, there was only a sunken black hole, brimming thick clots of blood. The other – unnaturally bright and blue as a spring sky – stared at him, eyelid flickering. Erlan felt weak. His skin stung like he’d been flayed to the bone. But he knew he had to reach Kai.
He slid off Vargalf’s faceless corpse and crawled over, the chain strung out behind, his blistered feet dragging through the filth. Reaching Kai, he sat up.
Only then did he see the floor on the other side of Kai and his heart sank. A lake of blood fanned from the wounds in his side, shimmering black and orange in the firelight.
The raven’s wine... Enough to slake an army.
‘Let me help you.’ He lifted Kai’s head into his lap.
‘Ain’t no helping me now.’ Kai’s voice was faint and ragged.
Erlan shook his head. Kai’s face looked strange in the fire’s flicker – half living, half already dead. Like the face of Hel herself. ‘You came back for me.’
Kai grimaced. ‘I had to.’
‘Vargalf said you were dead.’
‘Bet he wishes I were now.’ He tried to laugh but it stuck. ‘You look terrible.’
‘You don’t look so good yourself, little brother.’ Erlan grinned, pushing Kai’s fringe away from his good eye. ‘Where were you all this time?’
‘In the woods... They never caught me.’ He closed his good eye and sighed. ‘Is the fire dying?’
Erlan glanced over. It was still burning strong. He shook his head.
‘Funny... So cold.’ He clutched Erlan’s hand. His fingers were like icicles. ‘Is there water?’
The pot in the corner was empty, Erlan knew. He shook his head again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Doesn’t matter... It’ll be over soon. For me... But you must live.’ He gave a sudden suck at the air as a spasm passed through him. ‘Listen... there are things I must tell you. Things I saw.’ His voice was so quiet. ‘Bodvar is dead.’
‘I know.’
‘They trampled him. Sigurd’s horses...’ He tried to twist his head to see Erlan better. ‘They’d have done the same to you.’
‘Stay still, brother.’
‘They meant to kill you.’ Erlan squeezed his hand. ‘But now – now they can’t.’
‘We’ll leave this rotten hole. Should’ve a long time ago.’
Kai almost smiled. ‘Think I’ll stay here... if it’s all one to you.’
‘No. You go where I go. That’s what you always told me.’ The words sounded hollow as a reed.
‘Listen to me. There’s more. Sviggar’s bairns... That son of a whore strangled them.’
‘Svein and Katla?’
‘Buried them in the forest,’ Kai choked. ‘I saw him.’
Erlan swore. He tried to picture the two younglings, but found he couldn’t without seeing them in the folds
of Lilla’s skirts. But they weren’t hers. They were the queen’s, and now they too were dead.
His body was too weak to feel more hate. He felt only a kind of weary acknowledgement: that nothing as innocent as children, not even her own, could exist alongside Saldas.
‘Sigurd is bringing war,’ Kai muttered. ‘There’s an army about these halls... every tongue I ever heard and more. Like he’s ready for the fire-battle that’ll end it all.’
‘The Ragnarök?’
Kai snorted. ‘Would’ve made a fine song... Too bad I won’t be there to sing it.’
‘I’ll make a song for you.’
‘You?’ Kai smiled. ‘You haven’t got the rhyme of a dead goat.’ His breathing came quick and shallow now.
Erlan looked down, a lump swelling in his throat.
‘Reckon I’ll take my leave now, master.’
‘Stay... Stay, brother. Just a while longer.’ He felt his eyes welling up.
‘I’ll try, brother... if you tell me one thing.’
‘If I can—’
‘You can...’ Kai’s cheek was cold as stone against Erlan’s hand. His one eye gazed steadily at Erlan. ‘Tell me who you are.’
At first, Erlan said nothing, but his mind began to swirl with his past, the past he had tried so hard to lock away. The past he had sworn he would share with no one.
‘My father named me Hakan. My name is Hakan, son of Haldan, son of Haldor the Black, Lord of the Vendlings and chief of the Northern Jutes. I am the chosen son of my father. I was to be lord of my people.’ They were simple words to say, yet why did they stir in him such muddy clouds of shame? His eyes dropped.
‘Hakan? That’s your name?’
He nodded.
Kai smiled. ‘It’s a good name. And you’re a good master... A good brother.’
A tear slipped from Erlan’s eye and ran in a grimy trail down his cheek, then dropped onto Kai’s face.
‘Hakan, son of Haldan. If you love me at all, do this for me.’
‘Say it and it’s done.’
A Sacred Storm Page 43