You Die When You Die

by Angus Watson

  “Bjarni, you should have kept your hair,” said Keef as the track swung uphill. “You look like Baldur the brave and boring.”

  “And you look great,” said Bjarni.

  A short while later, the path forked and they had to choose between staying up on the ridge or heading down to the valley floor.

  “We might find some people who’ve seen our friends in the valley,” said Erik. “We might even meet them by the river and cross together.”

  “Or we might meet some people who’ve killed our friends who’ll kill us, too, so we can all walk into Valhalla together,” said Keef.

  “That’s also a possibility, but I think we should head downhill.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “I honestly don’t mind,” said Bjarni.

  “Downhill it is.”

  Shortly after they’d finished their descent and were walking through a younger, brighter, animal-noisier woodland than the one that had fringed the ridge, they heard the scream.

  They all looked at each other.

  “That came—” said Bjarni.

  “From up the hill. I reckon it was—” said Keef.

  “Bodil.”

  “Yup.”

  “Cunt fucking cuntfuckers,” said Erik. The other two gave him strange looks and he realised that he’d reverted to his adopted Lakchan in his frustration.

  “Sorry, I mean oh no, what a blow, that came from up the hill and we decided to take the low road. But it also came from ahead of us, right?”

  The other two nodded.

  “It’ll take us ages to backtrack. There must be another way up. Come on!”

  Erik ripped his club from its belt loop, not because he’d need it immediately but to stop it banging against his leg as he ran, and sprinted down the woodland path. The other two thundered behind him.

  They were going at such a pace that they didn’t see the Scraylings until they rounded a corner and ran right into them.

  The Calnian Owsla set off at dawn. Paloma Pronghorn zoomed ahead as usual with the now normal request to catch and kill a pronghorn ringing in her ears. The others followed at a fast jog. Sofi Tornado led, followed by Sitsi Kestrel, Talisa White-tail, Morningstar and Chogolisa Earthquake. Yoki Choppa trotted along at the rear.

  Following Yoki Choppa’s divinations, it wasn’t long before Paloma skipped back with news that she’d found their trail but no pronghorns.

  “All things being equal,” she said, “we’ll be on them in about two hours.”

  But all things were not equal. Yoki Choppa had said it would take between two and three days not eating their power animals for them to notice a waning in their powers.

  It was day three.

  Bodil Gooseface screamed with rage, jumped past Sassa Lipchewer and sank her knife into the attacker’s neck. Woman and stabbed Scrayling went down in a mass of limbs and Sassa had a moment to blink in surprise that Bodil had saved her.

  But things were still far from whuppity-doo.

  Four more Scraylings advanced on Sassa. Wulf was sitting to one side, one arm useless, the other using his hammer to deflect the relentless blows of two Scraylings. Thyri was still on her back. One of the attackers had got hold of her foot and was battling to bring her thrashing leg under control while she kicked him with the other one. Two more were whacking away at her splintering shield with axes.

  Finnbogi seemed to gather his wits. He raised his sword and charged. Sassa felt a rush of hope. He swung at a Scrayling, the Scrayling ducked, punched Finnbogi in the stomach and grabbed his sword hand. The two men wrestled.

  Sassa swung her bow at the three men and one woman moving in on her. They were taking their time because they had time, but here they came, it was the end and—

  “WOOOOOO-TAH!”

  Garth Anvilchin charged into the clearing like an armoured buffalo, battle axe in each hand. He sliced one Biter Twin through the neck of the man struggling with Finnbogi, felled two of the Scraylings who had Thyri pinned down with a double undercut, sliced the throat out of the other, then set upon Sassa’s attackers.

  “Wootah!” shouted Wulf, launching himself back into the fight like a toy wooden warrior shot from a sling. He thumped his hammer into the head of one of his attackers. “Wootah!” he roared at the other, who backed away.

  “Wootah!” yelled Thyri, kicking the man who held her leg in the face with her free foot. She flipped herself onto her feet, punched the Scrayling with the boss of her ruined shield then sliced her sax sideways in an almighty blow that chopped through ribs and lungs.

  “Wootah!” yelled Bodil, but stayed standing next to Sassa.

  The Scraylings were routed. The four who were still on their feet looked at the blood-covered, advancing Hardworkers, then at each other, then fled away up the northward path.

  The Hardworkers stood, panting.

  “I think maybe Wootah does work,” said Garth, grinning.

  Finnbogi the Boggy blinked and walked over to Gunnhild. She had a gash on her forehead from the axe blow but it had not bled overly much and she was breathing. Wulf’s cut to his shoulder was nasty and deep, but not overly serious. Thyri was limping but insisting she was okay.

  Nobody had been killed or badly injured, which was astonishing and showed that the silly Hird training Finnbogi had always mocked was maybe not so silly. In fact he felt pretty silly now. He’d contributed nothing. If anything, he’d got in the way. Sweat was running down his back, not from exertion but from embarrassment at how useless he’d been. Everyone else had contributed more, including Gunnhild—and Bodil!

  “We have to chase those Scraylings down and stop them bringing others,” said Garth. “Finnbogi, you’re fast, come with me!”

  “I’ll come, too,” said Sassa.

  “No, stay here and tend to the wounded. We’ll be back soon. Come on, Finnbogi!”

  You tried to kill me. I’m not coming with you. I may just have been completely useless in a fight, and you might think that I’d want to make amends, but I don’t care how I look in front of Wulf, Sassa and Thyri. I am not coming—was what Finnbogi wished he had the courage to say. Instead, he said, “Let’s go! Wootah!” and ran up the path. He heard Garth follow behind him.

  Sofi Tornado hoped it was her imagination, but soon she knew it wasn’t. She was tiring. Caribou for stamina, tarantula hawk wasp for strength. Both of those were needed for them to run all day and they’d had neither for three days. After an hour, she was slowing. She even had a twinge of pain in her hip. The hope that all the others were doing better than her was dashed when they found Paloma Pronghorn sitting on a tree trunk in a clearing, elbows on knees.

  She looked up, wide-eyed and red-cheeked. “I’m sorry, I think I must be ill. I had to rest.”

  “I’m feeling tired, too,” said Morningstar.

  “Me, too,” said Sitsi Kestrel, “and I think Chogolisa and Yoki Choppa have fallen behind. We all must have eaten something. I bet it was that fawn last night. I thought it looked unwell.”

  “Actually,” sighed Sofi, “it was something we didn’t eat.”

  “What?”

  “Have a rest and wait for the other two to catch up. I’ll explain when they get here.”

  “Oooof!” said Erik, bouncing back half a yard. The Scrayling was knocked off his feet. He lay, looking up at Erik, brown eyes enormous. Behind him another Scrayling was tiptoeing backwards, as if he hoped they hadn’t seen him yet and he might sneak off. Both of them looked to be in their late teens. Neither looked like a warrior, nor a warlock. They were just everyday Scraylings.

  “Sorry about that,” said Erik, reaching down a hand to the felled one. “I’m in a hurry.” He hauled the young man to his feet. “Have you seen a bunch of people who look like us—paler skin and lighter coloured hair than your average person? There are, what, nine of them? Couple of women, two children …”

  “I’m Galenar,” said the righted Scrayling. “This is Massbak. We have seen them and they’re in danger.�
��

  “I’m Erik the Angry, these are Keef the Berserker and Bjarni Chickenhead. How come they’re in danger?”

  Galenar sighed. “Look, we’re not bad people, but our tribe is going to kill them because Calnia wants them dead and we’re scared of Calnia. I guess they’ll want you dead, too. It was us who saw the other lot coming. We told the chief and he didn’t want to kill you, but under pressure from the ruling council—which we were on—”

  “We’re not usually on the ruling council,” interrupted Massbak.

  “Shush, Massbak, that doesn’t matter.”

  “Let’s torture them, Erik, might speed things up,” said Keef.

  “No!” said Galenar. “We’re on your side! A squad was send to kill them at sunrise. Massbak and I decided it was wrong to slaughter children and such a, well, hot woman, so we decided to warn them.”

  “But it’s well after sunrise now,” said Bjarni.

  “I know.” Galenar’s head fell. “It’s my fault. We tried the drink-loads-of-water-the-night-before waking method and it didn’t work. It’s always worked before.”

  “We’ve never tried it before.”

  “Shut up, Massbak.”

  “Can you give us a bit more detail?” asked Erik.

  “Sure. It’s based around the idea that needing to piss will wake you up. The night before—”

  “Not about that. Where are our friends?”

  “Oh sorry, they’re on the cliff top, but it’s probably too late. There’s a secret path to the top. We were going to take it and see if we could save any of them. It starts about fifty paces back the way you came. It’s easily missed and—”

  “And you’re showing us where it is, now. Come on!”

  “Hang on,” said Bjarni, “I know this neat trick to fool anyone tracking us. You walk backwards in your own footprints like this.” He headed off backwards, gingerly stepping in his own tracks.

  Not a bad idea, thought Erik, and did the same.

  Garth and Finnbogi ran along the same broad path that Finnbogi had walked along the night before with Thyri. If anything, there were even more butterflies and the stink of flowers was even stronger. It wasn’t nearly so lovely, though.

  They passed the place where Thyri and Finnbogi had trained and ran on to another, wider clearing which was clearly some sort of shrine, with a couple of really very good giant fish woven from reeds, both looking through a gap in the trees, across a craggy cliff top and over the vast Water Mother valley.

  Standing between the two fish were the four Scraylings. They looked a lot more capable than they had when they’d fled. Two had hand axes, two had stone-headed spears. Finnbogi hauled his heavy sword free of its scabbard and tried to look menacing.

  “Out of the way, Boggy.” Garth shouldered past and ran at the Scraylings. All hope that the big man might have genuinely wanted Finnbogi’s help evaporated. The huge, armoured warrior intended to kill the Scraylings, then, surely, he’d turn on him. What could he do?

  Garth whacked a spearhead away with one axe and chopped into its holder’s head with the other. The other spear glanced off Garth’s mail shirt. The Hardworker swung round and opened the spearman’s stomach. The Scrayling fell hard onto his arse, looked down at shiny guts unravelling sloppily from a torso-wide wound, then tried to stuff them back in with both hands.

  Finnbogi gagged, then coughed. He really was not much use in a battle, he thought, blinking away tears brought on by his coughing.

  “Wootah,” snarled Garth, heading for the other two Scraylings who cowered at the edge of the cliff.

  Not a great place to cower, thought Finnbogi.

  The first Scrayling yelled and ran at his armoured attacker. Garth whooshed his axes upwards in a double undercut and sliced both arms clean from the man’s body. Letting his axes swing by their lanyards, Garth caught the armless man by neck and waistband as he fell, heaved him above his head, marched to the edge of the cliff, showered by his victim’s blood, and hurled him off.

  Wow, thought Finnbogi, despite himself.

  Enjoying his own warrior magnificence a little too much, Garth had perhaps assumed that the other Scrayling would wait for death at his god-like hands. The Scrayling had his own plans. He charged. He dived and flung his arms around Garth’s waist just as the Hardworker was turning to look for him. Both men went over the edge of the cliff.

  Brilliant, thought Finnbogi. Not exactly how I would have done it, but well done that Scrayling. He crept to the edge of the cliff.

  There was a gap in the trees and Erik saw that the path was heading straight for a cliff. He could see no obvious way up. Were they going to climb?

  He gulped. The great thing about Lakchan territory, and Hardwork, too, was that there was pretty much no way one could fall to one’s death, so long as one avoided climbing trees. There were no secret paths that climbed up cliffs, for example, which, given their secret nature, were bound to be rarely trodden and badly maintained.

  Something caught his eye over to the south. There was a person flying from the top of a rocky promontory, spraying dark liquid as he tumbled. The figure’s arms seemed to be trussed. Or was he missing his arms? That would explain the spray. Whatever it was, it was an untimely reminder of the hideous power of gravity.

  “Tor’s tits,” said Bjarni. “You seeing this?”

  “I am.”

  “Good, just checking.”

  “I guess the fight’s started.”

  “We’d better hurry.”

  “I guess we’d better,” said Erik, looking up the cliff and gulping again.

  Finnbogi the Boggy edged as near as he dared to the top of the cliff. He craned his neck to peer over. The Scrayling was nowhere to be seen but Garth Anvilchin, Loakie curse him, was clinging to a resilient shrub a few feet down and scrabbling his feet against loose rock.

  Garth heaved like a birthing buffalo, but to no avail. He could not pull himself up. The rock was too loose and while the shrub seemed to be aggravatingly unbreakable, it was also slippery. Garth lifted his eyes to meet Finnbogi’s. His meaty face was twisted with exertion, but his eyes shone with unflappable, handsome confidence. No beseeching, no pleading, only the certainty that the cowardly, does-what-he’s-told loser Finnbogi the Boggy was going to help him up, even though Garth had tried to kill him two days before.

  Behind Garth, and a long way down, the Water Mother flowed muddily by, the early morning light orange-brown on the mighty river’s waters and golden green on its islands. Already there were several boats out. A large craft was floating downstream at a good clip and half a dozen or so smaller ones were crossing. The smaller craft seemed unaffected by the current and Finnbogi guessed that there must be a rope running right across the river. The rope must be freakishly long, light and strong, he thought, better than any rope the Hardworkers could have made.

  He stood.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Garth. “Where are you going? Come here now!”

  “I’m fetching something to help you up.” Finnbogi was shaking with hatred and excitement. This man had tried to kill him. This man had slept with Thyri.

  For once, Finnbogi was going to do something brave. Although not necessarily noble.

  “You can reach me with your hand, you idiot. Or use your sword, it’s not like you’ll ever use it for anything else. Come back here, Boggy. Now.”

  A spasm shook Finnbogi. By Loakie’s little dick, he hated that nickname.

  The Scrayling that Garth had eviscerated was whimpering and fighting a losing battle to stuff his entrails back where the Scrayling gods had put them. He saw Finnbogi coming and scrabbled for his axe. Finnbogi circled him and found the arms that Garth had chopped off his unfortunate friend.

  He picked up an arm. It was surprisingly heavy. He circled the dying Scrayling again and returned to Garth.

  “Here, I’ll give you a hand,” said Finnbogi. He jabbed the arm at his enemy’s face.

  Garth jinked his head to one side and grabbed the dead Sc
rayling’s wrist. Before Finnbogi had the wherewithal to let go, Garth hauled himself up. He stood, smiling.

  Finnbogi still held the other end of the arm. Skunks’ tits, how ridiculous, he thought. With a jerking pull, Garth ripped the arm from his grasp and tossed it behind him, off the cliff.

  Finnbogi reached for Foe Slicer’s hilt.

  “Go on,” said Garth. “Draw.”

  “I’ve only learnt blocks so far.” Finnbogi heard himself stammer. Heroic lines in difficult situations was not a strong point.

  “Draw, or die unarmed.”

  Strike first, strike hard, that’s what Thyri Treelegs had told him in his first lesson, a few days and a million years before.

  Finnbogi heaved the heavy sword free of its scabbard and swung it at Garth.

  Before the weapon even reached the top of its arc, Garth stepped in, grabbed Finnbogi’s wrists and twisted. The sword clattered onto rock. The much taller and heavier man pushed him back, away from the cliff edge, still twisting his wrists. He felt bones grind.

  “Hilarious, Boggy. You are hilariously shit.”

  He looked up at Garth’s smiling face. He felt both enraged and weakened with hatred. “I …” he attempted.

  “Don’t worry,” said Garth, releasing his grip and pushing him away. “I get it. I don’t even blame you for trying to kill me.”

  “You tried to kill me first, you dick!”

  “You wanted to kill me before that. You know it. I know it. You love Thyri. But she loves shagging me. She’s great, by the way. The things she does, the things she begs me to do to her … some of them are disgusting, frankly, but I do it because you would not believe what she does in return.” Garth smiled and shook his head.