You Die When You Die

by Angus Watson

  Finnbogi turned to go, thrilled at his successful verbal spar and keen to be away before Chnob could think of a clever reply. He was a fool, Chnob, but he wasn’t stupid. As he turned, he caught Bodil’s eye, and, without thinking, gestured with his head for her to follow.

  She smiled prettily but uncomprehendingly, which was how she always smiled, and looked back to Chnob.

  Finnbogi walked into the darkness alone.

  He stood for a moment while his eyes adjusted, then followed the path which ran parallel to the river, sometimes alongside it, sometimes through the trees. After a while he stopped where the bank had collapsed and packed earth sloped directly into the water. There were animal tracks everywhere which meant, he guessed, that a bear or a lion might happen along for a drink at any moment. Before all this had begun, that thought would have scared the crap out of him and sent him scuttling back to the others. Now? He didn’t feel brave, but he wasn’t scared. The hoots and whistles of nocturnal animals sounded all around and any number of them might have been on its way to attack him. But he didn’t mind.

  He sat on a log. Light from the Calnian campfire flickered on the leaves across the river. The women were going to catch them soon and there’d be no escape. That was the consensus, even if nobody was saying it.

  A snapped twig made him jump. There was something large coming along the path towards him. His heart raced. So much for his newfound bravery. A shape appeared at the edge of his little clearing. A woman. Bodil Gooseface.

  “Bodil,” said Finnbogi, standing. “What are—?”

  She put a finger on his lips and a hand on the small of his back, pulled him gently and pressed her groin into his. Her brown eyes were huge in the moonlight, blinking up at him. He kissed her finger. She pulled it away, closed her eyes, opened her mouth and lifted her face.

  On their way back to camp, maybe an hour later, maybe twenty hours later, they met Wulf and Sassa, walking hand in hand along the path towards them.

  “There’s a good spot for it about two minutes’ walk that way,” said Finnbogi, hoicking a finger over his shoulder, winking, then immediately wishing he was dead. What did he say such dumb things?

  Bodil wanted to share a sleeping sack, but Finnbogi mumbled something about that being impossible without disturbing everybody else and climbed in next to the irregularly snoring Bjarni.

  So, he thought, no longer a virgin. He’d pulled Bodil, two years older than him, and gone all the way with her. He grinned himself to sleep.

  Chapter 2

  A Tool

  The next day was hard. Wulf the Fat woke them before dawn. With most of the Hird injured he took the forward scout role with Erik the Angry and sent Finnbogi the Boggy, Sassa Lipchewer and Chnob the White to be rearguard.

  “He’s pretty desperate if he’s got untrained women guarding the rear,” said Chnob to Sassa as the others headed off and the three of them waited to follow at a rearguard distance. “Still, I’d guard your rear any day.”

  “You’re right, Chnob, you’re so much better suited to this than I am,” said Sassa. “How about you hang a hundred paces behind Finnbogi and me and be the real rearguard? You can call if you need us.”

  “I won’t need you.”

  “I’m sure you won’t. We’ll call on you if we need you, though. So, you wait here for a bit, we’ll head off now.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s a mountain!” said Finnbogi, a short while later.

  “I think mountains are quite a lot bigger than this,” said Sassa, but it was the steepest and highest slope that she’d ever had the misfortune to walk up.

  “So …” she said as the slope evened out. “Bodil?”

  “What about Bodil?”

  “I didn’t know you liked her.”

  “Who says I like her?”

  “Funny that you should switch your affections from Thyri so quickly.”

  “Is it?”

  “Be careful, Finnbogi. You can’t mess with people’s hearts.”

  “It wasn’t her heart I was messing with.” He chuckled, a bit disgustingly.

  “Finnbogi, don’t be a dick about this. Bodil likes you.”

  “I noticed.”

  “If you don’t like her in the same way, it’s wrong to encourage her.”

  “But she doesn’t really like me? I mean she might fancy me a bit, but surely that’s it?”

  “That’s not how Bodil works. It was her first time, too.”

  “What makes you think it was my first time?”

  She looked at him and he had the good grace to go red. “It was her first time and it was important to her. Was it important to you?”

  “I … It was really good.”

  “So you’ll be doing it again tonight? You didn’t in any way use Bodil to get at Thyri?”

  Finnbogi opened his mouth to say something and closed it again. They walked along in silence for a while. She could almost hear him thinking.

  “I’ve fucked up,” he said, a good few minutes later, “haven’t I?”

  She liked Finnbogi. He was insecure, maybe because he’d grown up without proper parents. That insecurity could come across as arrogance, even nastiness, but, pick the twatty crust off his character and you found a decent, sensitive young man underneath.

  “Sounds like you have fucked up,” she said.

  “What should I do? I’m a tool.”

  “You’ve been a tool, but at least you can see your mistake. What do you think you should do?”

  “Be cruel to Bodil so she goes off me.”

  She looked at him. He didn’t seem to be joking. The twatty crust was quite thick in places.

  “Wrong, you dong. You have to explain to her.”

  “Tell her the truth?”

  “No, don’t be stupid. Tell her a good lie.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you were terrified by the situation we’re in and were looking for comfort. You like her a great deal, but you’ve always seen her as a friend, even a sister, and, although it was the best thirty seconds of your life—”

  “It was more than thirty seconds.”

  “So although it was the best thirty-five seconds of your life, it was a mistake to take the friendship further and you won’t be doing it again.”

  “I’ve got to say that to her?”

  “Yup, unless you can come up with anything—”

  “They’re coming!” shouted Chnob from behind. “The Owsla are coming!”

  They spun round.

  “Got you!” Chnob laughed.

  “That guy is the biggest dickhead,” Finnbogi muttered as they walked on.

  “Not today. Today he’s the second biggest dickhead.” She raised an eyebrow at Finnbogi and he looked at his feet.

  The other problem with Finnbogi shagging Bodil, of course, was that Keef was in love with Bodil. Maybe Bodil would have reciprocated if she hadn’t been holding a flame for Finnbogi, a flame that Finnbogi had probably just fanned into an inferno. There was no point telling Finnbogi about Keef’s affections, though. That would be a disservice to Keef.

  She really was lucky with Wulf the Fat. When they’d made love by the river the night before—further upstream from where Finnbogi and Bodil had rutted and beyond the scavenger-busy remains of the shark that Erik’s bear had eviscerated—she’d been more certain than ever that they’d created a new life.

  Did that make up for taking a life? She thought about Hrolf the Painter often; his ruined, leering face before she’d pushed the knife into his neck, the gush of warm blood over her hand, his eyes showing surprise, then terror, then nothing.

  She thought of him often but she could not, no matter how hard she tried, feel guilty about killing him.

  Finnbogi resolved to speak to Bodil, but he’d have to wait until a good time, which wasn’t while he was rearguard.

  It was a joy to walk next to beautiful Sassa Lipchewer. Wulf was a very lucky man to have such a problem-free love life with such a wonderful girl.
She’d been right about Bodil. He’d been thoughtless, but he would make amends by talking to Gooseface as soon as the right moment presented itself.

  He and Sassa chatted about other things as they walked—about their childhoods, about people in the group, about others who’d died at Hardwork—and it was more like they were best of friends out for a summer stroll than two people facing certain, imminent and violent death.

  He asked her how he should win Thyri, and she said he should be himself. He said he’d been trying that for years and it hadn’t got him anywhere and she laughed. He told her how much he regretted saying “There’s a good spot about two minutes’ walk that way” to her and Wulf the night before. She said, yes that had been a dickish thing to say, but that’s what happened when, like him, you tried to be funny the whole time. Either he could be more careful about what he said and be less funny, or he could accept that every now and then he was going to upset people and embarrass himself. She said that she preferred the latter Finnbogi, and when he did say stupid things he could look at her and know that she’d be on his side.

  It was at that moment that he decided he might love Thyri Treelegs sexually, but his deep fraternal love for Sassa Lipchewer was almost as strong.

  The hill that he’d called a mountain proved to be the first in a set of ridges, so Wulf pushing them to keep up a strong pace and take no breaks was made even worse by the fact that they were going uphill most of the time, with wet feet from the streams they had to cross at the lowest point between every ridge.

  They walked on and on. They passed a stark stand of dead trees at the top of one of the rises, their branches heavy with hundreds and hundreds of red-faced vultures watching them pass. Minutes later, as if to counteract any bad omen from the vultures, a thousand-strong flock of gigantic white pelicans flew overhead.

  At the lunchtime break when they sat down together, Wulf congratulated them and said they’d covered about twenty-five miles, their best morning so far. Finnbogi’s feet certainly felt like they’d gone further than ever before, and it looked like everyone else was feeling it, apart from Ottar and Freydis who were running around full of the joys of life, having been carried most of the morning by Erik and Wulf.

  Thyri sat silently throughout the lunch stop. She was leaning on Garth’s arm, one hand on his wrist, which tore at Finnbogi a little. However, on the bright side, her nose was a swollen and angry purple from Sadzi Wolf’s knee the day before, and she looked sour as a cat with a pine cone recently inserted up its arse. Garth, who had a big bruise on the side from Wonderful Wulf’s kick, didn’t look any happier. Neither of them spoke.

  For the afternoon, to Finnbogi’s joy, he was put back on rearguard with Sassa and Chnob, and again Sassa persuaded Chnob to hang behind.

  They talked about The Meadows, and what they hoped to find there. Sassa said there’d be streams, beautiful hills they didn’t have to walk up unless they wanted to, and they’d all have lots of children to entertain them and look after them when they were older. Finnbogi wondered briefly why she and Wulf didn’t have any children and almost asked, but then they were talking about something else.

  Finally the series of rises ended and they could see for miles and miles, across prairie dotted with stands of trees on hilltops and divided by lines of trees marking out watercourses. Far, far to the south they could see the smoke.

  Bodil fell back to join them, “Look at the view! That smoke … Is it Muspelheim, the land of fire where the giants live?”

  “Yes, Bodil, I’m sure it is.” He gave Sassa an “isn’t Bodil stupid?” look.

  The look she gave him in reply made him shiver. “It’s a prairie fire, Bodil,” she said, “they happen every now and then, otherwise this would all be trees and not grassland.”

  “What, really?” asked Finnbogi. “How do you know?”

  “I grew up on a farm. Now look, I’m going to join Chnob for a while, so you can say anything you need to say.” She stopped to wait for the bearded backmarker.

  Finnbogi walked on with Bodil, waiting for a pause in her chatter. But in the very few pauses it seemed ridiculous to suddenly announce that he loved her like a sister and not a lover, so the words went unsaid.

  That night when they’d finally made camp and eaten, Finnbogi saw Bodil trying to catch his eye, but he headed off to his training. He could feel Sassa glaring at him, but what was her problem? It was important for everybody in the group that he trained. Maybe just this little bit would make the difference in the coming battle against the Owsla.

  By the time he finished, he was far too tired to be talking to Bodil about serious things, so he slid into the sack next to Bjarni and fantasised about living in The Meadows in a house with Thyri Treelegs. Wulf and Sassa lived across the shallow, flower-filled valley and the two couples’ children played in the middle.

  It took all day to build the boat. They didn’t have the tools, and Sofi Tornado wanted it done properly. Sadzi Wolf may have survived the sharks, but she didn’t expect that the rest of them would, and there were many more fins in the river now. Perhaps news of the few chunks they’d taken out of Sadzi Wolf had spread and all the sharks had returned, thinking the human sacrifices had resumed.

  The craft was ready as the sun was setting. Sofi decreed that they’d camp in the same spot that night and head across the river first thing in the morning.

  At a good pace, they’d catch up with the Hardworkers by the early afternoon.

  Chapter 3

  Heartberry Canyon

  “Wowsa in wootah!” Ottar the Moaner leapt about, pointed at the ground, flicked his fingers towards everyone as if he was trying to spatter them with invisible mud, then pointed back at the ground and nodded vigorously. “In wootah. Wootah!” he insisted. “Woooo-tah!”

  “The Calnian Owsla are crossing the river,” explained Freydis the Annoying.

  Everyone looked at everyone else with varying degrees of determination and fear, apart from Erik the Angry who sighed and Wulf the Fat who grinned and said: “Did he say ‘wootah’?”

  “He did,” said Freydis.

  “I like it. Wootah. Wootah. Woo … tah! I’m going to use it. Do you mind, Ottar?” But the boy was already bouncing away, following a grasshopper. “Can you ask Ottar if he minds, please, Freydis?”

  “He won’t mind.”

  “Good. Wootah. Woooo—TAH!”

  Sassa poked his chest. “What do you mean you’re going to use ‘Wootah’? What are you going to use it for?”

  “I dunno. I just like it. Battle cry? Expletive? Perhaps I’ll shout it as I ejaculate. Woooooo—taaah!”

  “Well, whoopee for me, that’ll enhance orgasm. Come on, though, those women move a lot faster than us. Let’s get the wootah out of here.”

  “How far to the Water Mother?” Garth asked Erik as they trudged up the first rise of the day.

  Erik didn’t know. He’d been lost in thought when he’d made the journey before and hadn’t noticed the days passing. But he knew they weren’t nearly close enough.

  “A day and a bit’s walk,” he said, thinking it was probably more.

  “We shouldn’t have stopped for the night,” said Garth.

  “We had to stop.”

  “Not all of us.”

  He was right. They’d gone maybe forty miles the day before, which was far too far for anyone to walk in a day, but Erik himself could have kept going. In fact he could have sped up, even run, if his life had counted on it, which of course it did. All of them could have run all the way to the Water Mother if they really had to, with the exception of Gunnhild and the children. So Garth had a point. But it was a wanker’s point and Erik didn’t bother answering.

  “Wulf, I’ve got an idea!” shouted Garth, jogging off to catch up to the leader.

  Erik walked on. At their current pace, the Owsla were going to catch up and chances were the Hardworkers weren’t going to be so lucky this time. If they ditched Gunnhild and the children, and anyone else who couldn’t trot alon
g at jogging pace all day, they really might get across the Water Mother before they were caught. If they split up, there’d be an even greater chance that some of them would make it.

  Funny, though, those ideas didn’t interest him. He’d been with this lot for a couple of days, but already he was certain that they had to live together or die together.

  Up ahead, Garth clearly didn’t get the reply he wanted from Wulf. “We’re all fucked then!” he raged, and stormed off ahead.

  Around lunchtime, Erik reckoned the Calnians would be on them any moment. Keef and Bjarni, who were rearguard that day, said they’d seen something that could have been Paloma Pronghorn darting around behind them.

  Erik jogged to catch up to Wulf. “How about I call in Astrid and we take the rearguard? I don’t know if I’ll be much use against the Owsla, but the bear should slow them up for a bit.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.” Wulf scratched his chin.

  “You won’t stop me, though?”

  “No.”

  “See you then.”

  Erik fell back, told Keef and Bjarni that he was replacing them as backmarker, and called for Astrid.

  “We’ll be on them in an hour,” said Paloma Pronghorn.

  “They’re heading into the Big Bone tribe’s territory,” said Sitsi Kestrel.

  Sofi Tornado looked at Yoki Choppa, who shrugged.

  She agreed with the warlock. The Big Bone tribe would probably kill the Mushroom Men. If they didn’t, the Owsla would. It made no difference; by sunset the Mushroom Men would be nothing more than an odd little story which might be told for a generation or two.

  Finnbogi had been watching the sky to the south become steadily darker. Now, although it was a sunny day where they were, to the south was ridge after ridge of cloud, darker and darker until it was the same wounded purple-black as Thyri’s nose.

  “Should we be looking for shelter?” he asked nobody in particular.

  “Why?” It was Bodil. She’d been walking behind him and he hadn’t noticed.