Tor spat, tasting blood in his mouth.
“It would look better on you if you had earned it.”
Kai punched Tor on the left side of his face and blood few along with a spray of spittle. Tor felt with his tongue. Two teeth had been loosened and once more he had the taste of blood in his mouth.
He spat a wad of it in Kai’s face.
“Is that all you have? I know you are a coward but I did not know you were also a woman.”
Kai hit him again, and once more darkness started to creep around him.
I will not give him the satisfaction.
He forced himself to stay conscious. He heard a rasp as Kai unsheathed the sword. When his eyes focussed he saw the man standing above him, weapon raised.
He ignored it.
“Did you send men after the Skald?”
Kai laughed and lowered the sword.
“Send someone after your pet? Why would I do that?”
“He is Viking. We do not leave our men if they live.”
Kai smiled as he sheathed the sword.
“The Skald is most certainly not alive,” he said. “You saw it yourself. The beast carried him off.”
Tor strained at the ropes that bound him.
“Then we must follow.”
“There will be no following. The only place you will go is back to Ormsdale, to stand in the Great Hall and answer for your disloyalty to your rightful Captain. The sail-master will have a boat for me on the morrow, and we shall be on our way immediately.”
Tor spat more blood.
“Viking do not run from a fight.”
Kai smacked him hard on the jaw and Tor’s head rang.
“There is no fight,” Kai said. “Twenty and more of those beasts lie dead in the snow out there and the rest have fled. I shall take their furs and heads back to the Thane as geld. We shall at least have something from this journey.”
Tor smiled, remembering.
“What if I told you we could have much more?” he said. “What if I spoke of a mine, where silver is abundant?”
Kai hit him hard again, and this time when he spat a tooth went with it. But still he smiled.
“There is no such mine,” Kai said.
Tor grinned through the blood.
“Have a look in yonder cave,” he said. “There is a map carved there. A map that will lead you to untold treasure.”
He saw the greed in Kai’s eyes, a greed that had always been there, even when both were boys.
I have him.
“If you lie, I will have you killed,” Kai said.
Tor laughed at him.
“I am shitting in my breeks at the thought. Go and look at the cave wall. I speak the truth.”
Kai left. As he went through the doorway Tor finally allowed himself to drop his head. After a time his ears stopped ringing and he felt he might be able to move without throwing up. He strained at the ropes that bound him to the post, but they had been tied so tight he had scarcely any room for movement. Rough leather chafed at his wrists. He tugged and pulled until the pain got too great, but he could not get loose.
He called out, but no one answered.
The ground was freezing beneath him and he felt the cold seep up through to his very bones.
If I do not get up from here soon it will be a block of ice they take back to Ormsdale.
His ribs ached where the Alma hit him, and the side of his face felt swollen where Kai punched him. But his anger kept all thoughts of pain away. That, and the thought of Skald in the hands of the beasts.
Kai returned ten minutes later. He did not waste time getting to the point.
“This silver of which you spoke? How do you know it is there?”
“If I tell you, will you free me?”
“Tell me, and I will consider it.”
I doubt that very much. But it is my only chance.
“The small people gave Skald a pendant,” Tor said. “Why do you not ask them?”
Kai snorted.
“I would if it were possible. They have all gone.”
“All?”
Kai nodded.
“The cave was empty save for a few furs. There was nothing that could be of any value.”
Tor spat more blood.
“You saw the map?” he said.
Kai nodded.
“And you believe me about the mine?”
“Aye,” Kai said. “We found two more of the silver amulets in one of the houses. But it will do you no good. I will take most of the men with me, but you shall stay here until our return.”
Tor strained at his bonds, raging, but the tethers held firm.
“Skald is my friend. I must go after him,” he shouted.
Kai slapped him again, hard, across the cheek.
“You must do as your Captain commands,” he said. He spat in Tor’s face. “And your Captain says stay. You are my pet now.”
Kai left again. A few minutes later Tor heard the sounds of him barking orders and men preparing to leave. But no one came to talk to him, and the cold seeped ever further into his bones.
It was several hours after Kai and the men left before anyone came in to the roundhouse. Tor only knew that men had been left behind by the sound of axe against wood coming from somewhere outside, but when he called out, no one replied, and no one came near him. He drifted in and out of consciousness, but in both places he kept seeing the same thing, Skald, limp and unmoving, being carried into the forest by the Alma.
He roused himself by kicking his legs up and down to try to get some life into them, but even that act drained him. The cold gripped him so tight that he was near ready to give himself to it.
He was barely able to lift his head when Bjorn the sail-master walked through the doorway.
“Help me,” Tor managed to whisper.
Bjorn cut his bonds and half-dragged, half-carried him to a straw bed, where he laid Tor down and covered him with furs. Tor lay there, shivering, while Bjorn lit a fire in the stone grate.
“I am sorry lad,” the sail-master said. “I had to make sure the cur was well gone before coming to your aid.”
Tor’s teeth chattered too much for him to reply. Bjorn left him lying there wondering if he would ever be warm again.
The sail-master returned with a bowl of fish stew. It tasted as foul as ever, but its heat did its job, and Tor began to feel as if he might just live a while longer.
Bjorn spoke while Tor ate.
“We thought you were dead when we got to you under yon tree,” he said. “That was some skelp the beast gave you.”
Tor felt at his ribs. None seemed broken, but there was a large area that hurt to the touch. He opened his jerkin to check, and closed it again quickly. A purple bruise covered his side from nipple to hip.
“I will live. I shall be stiff for days,” he replied. “But I am well enough for what must be done.”
He stood, too fast, and the room spun around him, as if he had drank a bucket full of mead. He had to swallow to keep the stew from coming up. He sat again, hard.
“Take it slowly lad,” Bjorn said, putting out a hand to stop Tor from toppling backward. “You look as close to death as any man I have seen these last few days.”
Tor sat and ate more of the stew, this time allowing it to do its job. Bjorn told him the rest of what he had missed.
“There has been no sign of the Skald,” he began. He put a hand on Tor’s shoulder. “I am sorry lad. And we lost six other men in the fight. But Kai is not concerned with even giving them a burial. He has four of us working on the boat. The rest he has taken with him, in search of your silver.”
Tor stood again, slower this time. The room stayed still and he no longer felt nauseous. He was still as weak as a newborn, but he felt stronger with every passing minute.
“I shall go after him. Or rather, I shall go after Skald. I cannot leave him in the hands of those things.”
Bjorn put a hand on Tor’s shoulder.
“The Skald is su
rely dead and gone. It is a fool’s quest you undertake.”
Tor shook his head.
“He lives yet. I feel it, here.” He thumped at his chest, and immediately regretted it as pain shot up his side and he coughed, tasting blood.
“I shall come with you,” Bjorn said.
Tor pushed him away.
“Nay, you must finish the boat. We may have need of a means to escape quickly.”
“You cannot do this alone. Not in the state you are in.”
Tor smiled grimly.
“I have found myself to be capable of more than I though possible these past days,” he said. “I will endure.”
Bjorn smiled back at him.
“I believe you might lad.” He sighed. “I shall do as you ask. I shall build you a boat. It will not be a longboat, nor will it be suited for war, but it will suffice to get us home.”
“That is all I ask,” Tor said quietly.
But at that moment, the Halls of Ormsdale seemed very far away indeed.
Ten minutes later Tor said his goodbye to Bjorn at the gate of the stockade.
“The beasts may return at nightfall,” Tor said.
“Do not worry lad,” Bjorn replied. “I shall not make the same mistake as Kai. Long before the sun goes down we shall be up in yonder cave with a roaring fire going. And on the morrow, we shall have a boat, and will anchor well away from the land. Even if these beasts can swim, we shall see them coming from afar. Do not worry about us.”
“If Kai returns before me, things may go bad for you,” Tor said. “You should say I tricked you.”
Bjorn smiled.
“If Kai returns before you, I may deal with him myself. Now go. You have a Viking to find. May the Gods go with you.”
They clasped hands, and Tor set off across the shore.
Something caught his eye among the stones. Looking down, he found Skald’s staff and a hammer with a stone head. He put the hammer in the shoulder pack he carried, and carried the staff in his left hand.
He waved back, once, to where Bjorn stood, then walked into the forest.
He had wanted to leave immediately, but Bjorn had insisted he took some minutes to prepare for a journey. Now that he was within the forest, he was glad he had taken the time.
He pulled a cloak around his chest. Underneath it he wore a leather jerkin and two pairs of heavy coarse woollen breeks. They had belonged to Viking who perished the previous night. He also wore fur-lined deerskin mittens and boots, and he had found a sword. It had been badly notched, and wasn’t anywhere near as well balanced as Per’s. It was also much shorter, having been broken and reshaped at some time in the past. It was more suited for close work than the longer weapon he’d used so effectively the night before.
But it is a sword nonetheless. It will kill as well as any.
His helm proved to be too battered to rescue, but he found a worthy replacement that was made of thick leather with iron studs woven into the material, and a chinstrap to pull it down over his ears. He had to wash some bone and brain from inside it, and he tried not to think of the Viking who had so recently worn it as he pulled it over his hair, letting the long strands fall out at the back.
He carried some dried fish and a skin of water in a shoulder bag, which felt heavy now that they had been joined by the stone hammer. The sword swung at his side on a thick belt and he used Skald’s staff to push through the snow that was much thicker here under the trees, and getting steadily deeper as he headed away from the shore.
He followed a set of large tracks, much bigger than any man would make, and twice he found scat that was still warm and reassured him he was on the right trail.
There was no sign of Kai having been this way, but Tor guessed that the Alma might know routes that did not appear on any map. He kept his eyes on the tracks and followed them as they led him high up onto the mountainside above the settlement.
Be well Skald. I am coming.
28
The beast carried Skald high up into the mountain passes above a long wide glacial plain. All night and most of the morning it had strode, faster than a Viking could have ran.
Skald felt light headed and nauseous. He dry-heaved but nothing came up. The yawing and rolling continued as they went almost straight up a mountainside, with Skald looking down at dizzying vistas of forest and glacier below them.
He remembered the glacial plain from the map back in the cave. Somewhere above them, if the relief had shown true, there would be massive stone buildings, and a statue that terrified Skald greatly.
Even the thought of it brought the wyrd rushing into his mind. He fell inside, grateful for the escape.
He floated high above the same glacial plane. Two men walked there seemingly impervious to the biting wind and snow that blew horizontally down the valley. One man was short, dark skinned and with a quick smile that was betrayed by a certain cunning behind his eyes. The other was tall, broad shouldered, and carried a stone hammer that Skald would not even have been able to lift never mind wield.
Skald realised these were not men he was being shown.
These were Gods.
Thor and Loki were on a mission, and he knew what it was, for the old story rushed back into his mind, the wyrd showing him something he had otherwise forgotten, one the many tales a Skald had to learn before he was allowed to stand in the Great Hall.
Odin sent them to the ice-lands, sent them to undo a great wrong that Loki had wrought. Years before, Loki had congress with a giantess, one of the old Jotun, and the union produced a male child called Varni. The giantess died in birthing him, and Odin, taking pity, allowed the boy a place in the halls of Asgard.
And things went well, for a while, but the child could not contain his heritage for long. Indeed, many of the Gods were afeared of him, for he grew exceeding large, and the time soon came when they looked for an excuse to be rid of him.
They got their chance one night in Valhalla when Varni got drunk on mead and ale. He abused the Gods, bewailing his plight as neither one thing nor the other, and would not be silenced.
The Gods chased him out of Asgard and he ran amok through the length and breadth of Midgard. Wherever he passed, he left death and destruction in his wake. Eventually the wailing of the people reached back to Asgard itself, and Odin heard.
Odin sent Loki after Varni, and sent Thor with him, to ensure the trickster complied with his wishes. They travelled long and far, and had many adventures on the journey, but finally Thor and Loki found Varni, gathering followers to him in a great temple high up in the mountains. He had built great halls of stone -- halls he could call his own, halls to rival those of Asgard itself. And he had made for himself followers, hairy beasts that would dance for him and do his bidding. He set the beasts against the Gods and a great battle was fought. Thor and Loki smote many until all that remained were the Gods themselves.
Thor battled the giant for six days and nights, until finally with one great blow of the hammer Molnjir he hit the giant between the eyes.
It is told that the whole of Midgard shook as the giant fell.
They bound Varni in his temple, lashing him to long slabs of rock. And as Thor and Loki stood back, the ropes became as hard as iron, binding the giant in place. And Varni cursed them, promising Ragnarok, the end of Gods, if he should ever get free. But the Gods were deaf to his curses, even as the stone took him, becoming one with his flesh, binding him there.
And there they left him, high in the mountain fastness, with only the wind and the cold for comfort.
But Varni is not dead, only sleeping.
In his dreams, he calls out for aid.
And sometimes, he is answered.
29
Tor followed the tracks for most of the morning and into the early afternoon until they climbed up out of the forest and onto a long glacial plain. He had run most of the way. His breath came hot and heavy, and the bruises from the earlier beatings throbbed in time with his heartbeat.
The ice field st
retched away into the blue misty distance. He stopped on the edge of the glacier and leaned heavily on Skald’s staff. Despite the cold he sweated profusely, especially under the woollen breeks. He took the water sack from his bag and sipped at it. He did not take a lot, for he did not know how much further he might have to run.
And now that he had lost the trail he only had a vague idea of the direction he needed to take. He remembered the map on the cave wall, and the depiction of the long glacier where he now stood. His objective was somewhere in the misty distance, ten miles or more across the ice.
He placed a hand above his eyes, trying to cut out the glare of the sun. There was a darker spot; far out on the glacier, several miles away, but from this distance he could not make out what it was. But it was the only thing of note on the white plain, so he set his gaze on it, and started off.
The going was slower now. The ice proved to be treacherous, with many crevasses and chasms studded along its length. Several times he had to retrace his steps after his path led him only to a gully too deep or too wide to cross. Occasionally he would catch glimpses of the darker patch on the ice, and as he got closer, he could see that it was not one, but several dark masses. Almost an hour later he realised that the darker patches were in fact bodies.
It did not look like any of them were moving.
As he got closer still he saw streaks of red on the snow, and walked faster, only slowing when he got within twenty yards of the first body.
There were four Viking lying in puddles of their own gore, and three Alma, just as dead alongside, cut with many sword strokes. Of Kai and the other Viking who left with him there was no sign, but a scattering of weapons on the snow showed that most, if not all of them, had been disarmed before whatever had happened to them.
Among the discarded weapons Tor found Per’s woven leather scabbard and, just to one side of it, the long sword. It had been bent almost double in the middle, as if someone of great strength had grabbed at both ends and twisted. Other weapons had suffered the same fate, swords, spears, and even several hunting knives.
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