You Die When You Die

by Angus Watson

  People who’d been there were Wulf the Fat, Sassa Lipchewer, Bodil Gooseface, Bjarni Chickenhead, Keef the Berserker, Chnob the White, Thyri Treelegs and … him! The only person in that group he didn’t like was that prick Chnob the White, and actually Bodil was a bit of an idiot, but the rest of them were the best people in Hardwork. And they’d accepted and chosen him! Garth Anvilchin, Gurd Girlchaser, Fisk the Fish and others hadn’t been chosen. But he had!

  They’d listened to his ideas. He knew that the land was marshy to the west, so had theorised that it would become marshier as they got further from the Fresh Sea since there was nowhere for the water to go. Everyone had nodded and hmmed at this, so he’d suggested taking Keef’s little birch-bark boat with them to ferry their provisions across rivers and lakes. They’d all thought it was a great plan. Wulf had even slapped him on the back and Keef had run off to get his boat straightaway to add it to their hidden stack of provisions. Best of all, Thyri had smiled at him like a proud wife when her husband does a good job.

  He’d walked home that day with a spring in his step and a grin on his face.

  Two weeks later, Finnbogi went to the second meeting of what he liked to call The Leaving Gang. It was also totally brilliant, but not quite so good as the first, because they didn’t seem any closer to actually going. Provisions were very nearly prepared, they were more or less ready to go, but nobody would commit to a day.

  Ottar’s prophecy that they’d be destroyed by the Scraylings was more than two weeks old now and everybody had accepted that it was only a strange little boy’s fantasy, so there was no urgent reason to depart. When Finnbogi suggested that they leave in a week’s time, Wulf had told him not to be so hasty. He didn’t mind too much; it was good enough knowing that they’d be going at some point, but he wished they’d hurry up and get on with it.

  They left the meeting at different times, so as not to arouse suspicion. Wulf asked Finnbogi to wait until last, which kind of marked him out as the least important, but he didn’t mind. The least important man at the Jarl’s table is still at the Jarl’s table, as Gunnhild might have said. He strolled back to Hardwork, through woods and clearings glowing golden in the dawn light, smiling like a loon.

  As he clambered through the branches of a tree that had fallen across the path, an enormous yellow and black bee buzzed him aggressively. He swiped at it, then decided No! No more will you frighten me, big black and yellow bees. Where they were going, he would have to deal with bees and probably worse every day. He would toughen up, learn how to fight … he’d get Thyri to teach him, as they journeyed together across the land!

  He was one of them, accepted, and they were all going to run away together. He was going to spend hours and hours, weeks and weeks—the rest of his life—with Thyri Treelegs. Three other single men were going, but surely she’d pick him over those oddballs? Bjarni and Keef were good blokes, sure, but there was no denying how weird they both were, and Chnob the Knob was Thyri’s brother, and he was a bellend. The odds were good.

  Bjarni and Keef had raided a neglected store and found leather sleeping sacks brought over from the old world. Each one could hold two people. Keef had wanted to take one each, but Sassa had said that they should keep the weight of their equipment to a minimum and share sleeping sacks. Everyone had agreed. Finnbogi tried not to think about it so he didn’t jinx it, but he hoped more than he’d ever hoped anything before that he’d be sharing a sack with Thyri.

  He paused to calm his breathing and heard shouts up ahead, in Hardwork. That was unusual, especially so early in the morning. He quickened his pace. A mournful bleat pealed through the woods. It was the alarm trumpet, the one that called the Hird to town in times of trouble and attack. He waited for the second trumpet call, which told you it was just a practice. That call didn’t come.

  Finnbogi the Boggy broke into a run.

  He burst from the trees outside the town. Nothing looked amiss. Hardwork wasn’t burning, there were no armies of Scraylings smashing down what was left of the walls and massacring the lot of them. Perhaps the trumpet call had been a practice after all.

  Doors banged open as he jogged along the main street. Everyone was running to Olaf’s Square. Someone pointed to the north. Finnbogi stopped and turned.

  Two tendrils of smoke were rising from the forest into the pale sky.

  Much later, Finnbogi would remember that image of ominous smoke against the pristine, peaceful blue as the moment that his life changed for ever. It was the moment, he’d come to think, which separated his childhood from his adult life.

  But he didn’t know that then.

  He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like one of the smoke strands was rising from the farm where Sassa Lipchewer’s family lived. The other, he was pretty certain, was coming from his home, the old church. He’d left Uncle Poppo, Aunt Gunnhild, the older girls Alvilda and Brenna and the kids Ottar and Freydis there when he’d headed off to the dawn meeting. All had been asleep. They never cooked their breakfast, and rarely did any work around the place that would require a fire, certainly not at this time of year. So why the smoke? Just one fire could be explained away, but two of them …

  He began to run to the farm, then checked himself. He wouldn’t be much use on his own. He’d go to Olaf’s Square and find out what was happening. Maybe his family would already be there, or maybe there’d be an explanation for the smoke.

  “I don’t think you should commit us all,” Wulf the Fat was saying when Finnbogi joined the throng gathered around Jarl Brodir and the Hird. “It could be a diversion, to lure our fighters out of town before the main attack. I’ll take the trumpet and run alone to Sassa’s place. I’ll blow it if I need help.”

  “Do you presume to order?” shouted Jarl Brodir. The spittle that Brodir sprayed up into Wulf’s face glinted in the early sun and Wulf took a step back. Brodir followed, poking him in the chest. “I was captain of the Hird before you were a baby and now I am the people’s choice of ruler! I am the people and they are me and my word is not to be questioned! The Hird will do as I have ordered. Lion squad will go to the farm, Wolf squad to the church. Find out what is happening, deal with it and come back!”

  “I think that …” said Wulf.

  “Now!” shouted Brodir, purple with rage. Behind him, Frossa the Deep Minded, or Frossa the Smelly Ogre as Finnbogi preferred to call her, smiled.

  The Hird arranged themselves into two companies.

  Finnbogi grabbed Bjarni Chickenhead’s arm. “Who’s going to the church?”

  “The other lot, the Wolves” said Bjarni. “And don’t worry, man, I’m sure it’s all fine.”

  “Okay, thanks.” That was annoying. Thyri was in the Lions, as were Wulf, Keef and Bjarni. The Wolves, who Finnbogi would have to follow up to the church, were led by Garth Anvilchin and included four others that Finnbogi didn’t like much: the slimy fork-bearded wanker Gurd Girlchaser, nasty little Fisk the Fish, creepy Hrolf the Painter and boring Frood the Silent.

  The Lions left first, followed by Sassa Lipchewer, who was chewing her lips with even more dedication than usual, and Bodil Gooseface, who followed Sassa everywhere. The paths to the farm and the church were the same until they split a couple of hundred paces into the woods, so Finnbogi and the Wolves followed behind.

  Finnbogi led initially, but Garth grabbed his shoulder, yanked him to a halt and said: “Bugger off, Boggy. This is man’s work.”

  “They’re my family and I’m coming. You can’t stop me.”

  Garth looked down at him, nostrils flaring, but then smiled. “All right, you little prick, come. But don’t get in the way. And know that I’m letting you come. I could stop you and I’d enjoy doing it.” With that friendly booster, Garth jogged off into the woods.

  Finnbogi felt hot and faint, but proud that he’d stood up to Garth. He may not have thought of anything clever or funny in reply, but soon all Garth’s friends were leaving Hardwork for good and Finnbogi was going with them and Garth wasn’t, so what
ever happened Finnbogi would win.

  He ran on.

  “Wait for me!” Freydis’s voice called as he reached the trees. She appeared over a dune with Ottar, both of them carrying smoked fish. They’d been robbing the smoking racks on the beach before everyone woke up.

  Finnbogi had to swallow a sob of relief on seeing that they were fine, which surprised him. Clearly he liked the tykes more than he thought he did.

  He waited. Freydis dropped her fish and ran as fast as a six-year-old girl could and Ottar came behind, shouting as he bounded down the dune.

  Finnbogi expected Freydis to ask what was happening.

  “So,” she said instead. “It’s started.”

  Chapter 11

  Red Fox One and Red Fox Four

  Erik the Angry was dreaming about the weird world of twisted, multicoloured hills and hot red sand again, and the child’s voice imploring him to go west to The Meadows. He walked around a phallic tower of red rock and saw a stone arch, crazily long and spindly, and the child cried out. No, it was a different child, higher and more pained …

  The cry rang in his ears again and he was awake and it wasn’t a child, it was Red Fox Four yipping somewhere down the hill, near the path leading from the Lakchan village. What was Red Fox Four up to, making all that noise so early in the morning when Erik and his new brew of mead had been up so late the night before? The exiled Hardworker lay on his bed in the wall of his shorthouse, pressing his eyes shut in an attempt to squeeze the headache out of his head, trying to work out what Red Fox Four was trying to tell him.

  When the animals had first communicated with him—or he with them, he wasn’t sure who’d started it—he’d given them all Hardworker names like Thorvald and Snorri—and Astrid. Then he’d found himself bereft every time one of them died, so he’d stopped naming them. In many ways it made it worse. Hearing Red Fox Four scream, for example, reminded him of the previous Red Fox Four, a good-natured but feisty little animal who’d been killed by the Lakchans for eating a sacred turkey. He could have given each one a new number, but that would have made Red Fox Four something like Red Fox Thirty-Two, and every new day that Erik spent alone, the less clearly he remembered higher numbers. Very few things in his life came in batches of more than six or so, so he no longer had any call for seven and beyond.

  Red Fox Four yelped again and Red Fox One called out from even closer. Buffalo’s piss, thought Erik, that meant there was danger. But what could it be? There was never danger. Animals didn’t trouble him and he was more or less one of the local Lakchan tribe now, good friends with Chief Kobosh. He grabbed his war club Turkey Friend from its hook, rolled off his bed and then under it, slid a bolt, pushed a plank and rolled out of the back of the shorthouse into his backyard. He sat up with a groan of effort. Rolling around like a child playing Hird and Scraylings wasn’t as easy as it had been a few years before.

  Astrid the bear was sitting on the yard’s packed earth looking as if she’d been expecting him. He told the huge animal that he’d shout if he needed her, and crept around the side of the building.

  There was nothing immediately terrifying in his front yard and he was about to return to bed when Red Fox Four yipped yet again, more urgently this time.

  He headed down the animal track that ran more or less parallel to the trail from his home to the Lakchan village. He was a large man—tall, big-shouldered, barrel-chested and paunchy—but he ran lightly and almost silently, in the way of wolves and foxes. It wasn’t hard, once you knew how.

  It wasn’t long before he spotted the cause of the foxes’ angst.

  Five young Lakchan warriors, three women and two men, were heading for his shorthouse, armed with bows and stone axes. He recognised all of them from the nearby village, but couldn’t remember their names, which wasn’t great because he’d slept with one of them the previous summer.

  They looked nervous. As well they might, coming at him armed like that.

  He’d thought that the danger might be people from another Scrayling tribe, or maybe even Hardworkers come to finish him off after all these years, but there was no mistaking Lakchans. They had two main gods, Rabbit Girl and her arch enemy Spider Mother. Generally, Rabbit Girl was good and Spider Mother was evil, but it wasn’t that simple. Rabbit Girl was the kind of irritating goody-goody who’d stop you having that third mug of mead, and you could understand why Spider Mother hated her. Spider Mother was bad, but often in amusing ways that you could relate to. She’d be pushing that third mug of mead, and a fourth. Many Lakchans, most of the older ones in fact, found greater affinity with Spider Mother than Rabbit Girl.

  To represent these gods and reflect the good and evil in all, every Lakchan wore a pair of rabbit fur rabbit ears on their heads and six leather spider ‘legs’ attached to their breech-cloth belts.

  So, the Lakchans had turned on him, just as the Hardworkers had. He sighed. It was disappointing. And confusing. Three days earlier he’d shared the last of his previous batch of mead with his, or so he thought, old friend Chief Kobosh, and had a good old laugh.

  “Kobosh must be fucking mad to send only five of us after the cunt,” said one of his would-be attackers.

  “That fucking bear of his—”

  “It’s not so much the cunting bear as the fucking lions.”

  “The lions aren’t friends with the cunt like the fucking bear is,” said the oldest person in the group, the woman who he’d slept with. What was her name? “Hopefully the bear won’t be there, but keep your arrows ready. Stick your fucking flint deep enough in a male bear and the cunt’ll run.”

  “And female bears won’t? Are female bears fucking better?” sneered a high-pitched young man, who Erik had known since he was a toddler and who’d been an irritating little shit at every stage of his life so far.

  “A female won’t run if she’s got cubs nearby, no. The males don’t have anything to do with the cubs, or any other bear, so will run if it suits them. Have your fucking parents taught you fuck-all?”

  “I wish they’d taught me how to avoid suicide missions like this fucker.”

  “The cunt was up drinking last night. He’ll be asleep. A couple of arrows in him and we’re done. Now quiet, no more fucking talking, we’re nearly there.”

  A great Lakchan hero of yore had sworn a lot, so now they all did to honour his memory. Erik had found it offensive for a while, but now he shruggingly accepted that all of them, from toddlers using words for the first time to wise old grandparents telling tales of old, swore almost every other word.

  He slipped from the bushes onto the track and silently followed his sweary, would-be killers up to his home.

  He caught up with the backmarker, clonked him on the head with Turkey Friend, caught the toppling man and lowered him into the undergrowth.

  As he’d hoped, the others ran on to his front door without realising anything was amiss. As one of them pulled at the barred door, he charged them from behind, arms wide, and knocked all four off their feet. After a brief wrestle, a few punches and a couple of club-whacks, the young Lakchans were unconscious.

  Erik went round the back of his house and found Astrid, yawning widely to display a mouthful of teeth that could eviscerate a buffalo with one bite.

  “Go to your winter cave. I’ll come and find you when I know what’s up,” he said.

  The bear dropped forward onto all fours and lumbered away.

  Erik crawled back into his shorthouse through the escape hatch, grabbed some twine, slung the sheath that held his double-bladed obsidian knife over his shoulder and unbarred the door. It was a bit of a struggle to push the door open because he’d left two of the Lakchans sitting against it. He’d been feeling a bit cocky after knocking them all out, but the error of blocking his own door reminded him that no matter how impressive they might seem for brief moments, all humans will regularly do something dumb. That was your Rabbit Girl and Spider Mother for you.

  Half an hour later he was neck deep in the cold water of a lake,
watching the Lakchan tribe eat their breakfasts.

  The village was mostly domed reed huts covered in buffalo skins, dotted about with carvings of rabbits and spiders. There was one large building, Chief Kobosh’s timber and daub longhouse. Erik had designed and mostly built that longhouse, using old world methods that had both impressed the Lakchans and made them complain about how much timber he’d used.

  Why on Oaden’s green earth had they tried to kill him?

  He waited until most people had headed into the fields and woods to farm and forage, then crept between empty huts to the back of the longhouse, shivering after his morning dip. When he’d built the longhouse, he’d felt a bit guilty sticking in a secret panel like the one in his shorthouse, but he was glad he’d done it now.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust when he stood up inside, so he had a blissful second of feeling successfully stealthy, before realising he was surrounded by a dozen or so warriors, arrows strung and pointed at him. Chief Kobosh sat on the Spider Throne, his rabbit ears towering imperiously, long-stemmed pipe in one hand.

  “Ah,” said Erik.

  Chief Kobosh sucked deeply on his pipe and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Good morning, Erik, you old cunt,” he said in his rough, bubbling voice, “why are you wet?”

  “Came via the lake.”

  “You, my friend, have always been fucking strange. It’s a fucking shame we have to kill you.”

  Chapter 12

  Caterpillars

  Sassa Lipchewer ran behind Wulf the Fat, Keef the Berserker, Bjarni Chickenhead, Ogmund the Miller and Thyri Treelegs. She felt sick.

  Next to her, Bodil Gooseface was babbling away: “I’m sure they’re just burning cleared leaves or something and it’s a coincidence that Poppo and Gunnhild are doing the same thing. What was it that Finnbogi said the other day about coincidences? He said it would be more unusual if coincidences didn’t happen … hang on, that’s not it. And maybe it wasn’t Finnbogi. But somebody said that coincidences—”