by Mark Coakley
"So the closest land is that way," the steersman said. "But there's no way to know if it's Pictland or not. The storm could have blown us far past Pictland. We can follow the raven west, find out where he's going, or we can keep sailing south-west, as that Sogn-pirate told us to do. What do you say?"
Halfdan said, "Follow the raven."
Chapter 24
ODIN GUIDES THE SHIPS
Following the raven, the Norse war-ships found land. It was a large land-mass, mostly covered with forests, with some areas cleared for farm-fields and scattered wooden buildings. The land-mass stretched north and south as far as the look-out's eyes could see. From a distance, the Norse-men saw a few small fishing-type ships near the shore. And they saw, a short distance from the mainland, a small island. There was a small settlement on it, surrounded by a stick fence — the Norsemen saw some buildings (all wooden, except one that looked built of stone, with a strange-looking roof), walking-paths, farm-fields, and a dock with a few small boats.
"Do you think that island is Pictland?" Halfdan asked.
"No," the steersman of Wave-Jumper said. "Pictland is supposed to be made of many islands. Not one tiny island, all by itself. And the pirate did not mention any big continent" — pointing at the mainland.
Halfdan pointed at the little island. "There are folk living there," he said. "Not enough to put up much defence, but enough to make it worthwhile. Pictland or not, let's raid that place."
The three war-ships sailed back east, to hide on the far side of the horizon until nightfall.
Chapter 25
THE KILLING OF HAKI
Waiting for darkness, drifting with lowered sails in the open water over the horizon, fighters sharpened and oiled the blades of their weapons. Most of them smeared blue paint around their eyes: raiding was a very special occasion. Some young men, nervous before their first raid, rubbed fingers on soap-stone or clay idols of Tor, Baldur or Freyir, for good luck.
At sunset, men started putting on body-armour and helmets.
Halfdan opened his sea-box and took out a surprising-looking helmet. A curved bull-horn was stuck onto each of its iron sides, the horn-points sticking up.
Haki laughed and said, "What is that thing?"
"My raiding-helmet," Halfdan said.
"But why the horns?"
Halfdan said, "To look fierce."
"But they ruin the helmet. It's not practical for fighting. If a sword hits one of those useless horns, the whole thing will be knocked off your head."
"I know," Halfdan said. "But this is a raid, not a battle. In a battle, equipment needs to be good. In raiding, making panic is the main goal. This helmet will help with that."
"Let me see. Put it on."
Halfdan lifted the horned helmet and pushed it onto his curly hair. He bared his teeth and glared fake-furiously.
Haki said, "Amazing! You look just like a black troll!"
Halfdan said, "King Lambi taught me this trick. The helmet once belonged to him. He used to always wear it raiding, and folk would always scream and run away."
"Folk will try to run no matter what kind of helmet a raider wears."
Shrugging, Halfdan said, "I like the helmet, practical or not. I'm wearing it. If not to scare folk, then for good luck."
"I'd like a helmet like that, except with moose-horns. Or walrus tusks!" Haki staggered around the cluttered deck, pretending that he was wearing a helmet with gigantic, heavy horns. Everybody laughed.
Except Venn. Like always, he was glum and quiet, watching Halfdan from the corner of his eye.
Overhead, a full silver moon stared down.
The bright sky-eye was reflected in the grey ripples of the Endless Ocean.
They waited.
Dark clouds slid across the sky, westwards.
In the cloud-gaps, stars slowly spun.
A big fish splashed the surface.
They waited.
Finally, Halfdan said, "I think they should be asleep by now."
"Having sweet dreams," Haki grinned.
The steersman of Wave-Jumper called for quiet rowing towards the western horizon. The sails were kept down, to make the ships harder to see from shore. The other two ships followed.
Soon, they saw the dim island ahead.
The look-out of each ship used a length of string with a bronze weight to check the depth of the water as they moved, almost silently, through the darkness.
They could see a stretch of sandy beach on the south shore of the island.
"You want to land there?" asked the steersman.
Halfdan nodded.
A short distance from shore, the steersmen of the three ships dropped anchors — willow-branch baskets full of stones, with wooden pieces sticking out to grip the sea-floor. The ships kept moving towards the island, with the anchor-ropes spooling out behind them. This was another of King Lambi's old raiding-tricks — if they needed to get the ships away from the island quickly, men would pull the anchor-ropes and drag their ships to sea; it was much faster than rowing.
Halfdan stood at the bow with his Eid-forged iron sword in his right hand, his round painted shield in his four-fingered left hand, and the odd horned helmet on his head. In the moonlight, the helmet made a monstrous-looking shadow on the deck behind him.
Haki and his berserker cousin Sten were close behind Halfdan, panting with eagerness. In his excitement, Sten chewed on the edge of his shield. Haki did not have a shield. Both berserkers wore bear-skins over their shoulders and had smeared blue paint, not just around their eyes, but over their whole faces.
Behind brown-faced Halfdan and blue-faced Haki and Sten were the rest of the raiders, rowing; some of them almost as fiece-looking as their leaders.
All were silent.
Everybody had an extra pair of shoes, hanging around their neck by their laces.
The beach ahead was empty.
A cool, windy night.
Venn, sitting in the middle of the rowers, was trembling and wide-eyed with fear and hope. He feared violence, or having to hurt somebody innocent. He hoped for a chance to kill Halfdan and disappear.
The nose of Wave-Jumper bit into crunchy beach-sand.
Halfdan jumped from the ship, splashing into knee-deep water. Haki and Sten jumped down behind him, followed by all the fighters on all the ships, except for steersmen and look-outs, who would stay behind to guard the ships and keep them ready for a fast escape.
In addition to weapons and shield and armour and extra shoes, each man carried a torch and a coil of rope.
Three men carried ladders.
On the shore, everybody sat on the sand to take off their wet shoes and dry their feet on a cloth, before putting on a pair of dry shoes. They left the wet shoes behind.
Haki was grinning widely; the ax-handle trembled in his strong, hairy hands.
Other fighters wore their shields on their backs, a weapon in one hand, a torch in the other. The torches were each as long as a man's leg, tipped with blobs of pine-tar.
Halfdan and sixty-eight raiders walked fast up the dark beach to a wildflower-covered area. To their left was an area thickly covered with bushes and trees; it looked subtly different from Norse forests. To their right, over a low hill, was a dim farm-field covered with tidy rows of small sprouting plants. The Norsemen did not recognize the growing crop. There was a path between the forest and the farm-land. They took the path.
Soon, the low wooden wall of the outlander settlement.
The smell of wood-smoke and beast-shit.
The raiders stayed in the shadows of the forest to light the torches. One man used a flint and piece of iron to strike sparks onto some charred cloth, which quickly started burning; one torch was lit from this fire, and then the fire was passed from torch to torch until all were burning.
"Go!" Halfdan hissed.
And the flame-lit Norsemen charged towards the wall.
Three ladders were leaned onto it, and three lines of men flowed up the ladders and jumped down
inside.
Halfdan, Haki and Sten were the first over.
Haki was growling in his throat.
Halfdan whispered, "Quiet!"
They waited for the others to climb the ladders. The settlement was a dozen or so wooden buildings that formed an uneven square around the larger, stone-walled, strange-roofed building he had noticed earlier. The stone building had a tall spire on top of it, tipped by a decoration shaped like a "^".
The symbol of Tor? Many of the Norsemen had idols in that shape hanging from their necks. Did folk here also worship the thunder-god?
The raiders ran in torch-light towards the building.
They saw nobody at first.
No open windows or doors.
No sign of fire-light.
No dogs.
Halfdan led them towards the stone-walled building, where he expected to find the settlement's leaders. Halfdan was amazed to see that the roof of this building was made of metal.
Why?
Wide and level stone steps led to a small porch in front of the stone building's round-topped wooden doors. These doors were framed by carved stone, depicting twisted leafy vines and odd-looking folk with wings growing from their backs.
There were two long and deep-set windows over the door, each about as tall as a man. One window had a square-shaped top, the other a round-shaped top.
Something covering the windows glittered oddly in the torchlight, reflecting light like ice.
No latch or key-hole on the door.
Haki was about to swing his ax at the door when Halfdan said, "Wait."
He pushed the door and it opened.
They walked into a dark, empty room. The walls were perfectly smooth and painted white. The floor was covered with wood planks joined closely together to make a smooth surface. There was no furniture. On the walls were fastened a few small metal cages that looked like they were for holding torches; the walls over them were smoke-blackened.
On the other side of the empty room was an open door.
Through this door was another room — an amazing room! The smooth walls and the high ceiling were painted in bright colours, brighter than any paints used in Norway, depicting men and women wearing strange, flowing clothes and standing among images of clouds and blue sky and odd symbols. Some of the folk in the pictures had bare feet and had big white wings growing from their backs. All the picture-folk had yellow circles painted around their heads. Unlike most Norse-folk, the eyes of most of the picture-folk were brown, and most had brown hair. Some were kneeling. Some were raising their arms. One winged painting-man held a flaming sword in one hand, a "T"-symbol in the other.
Who was depicted here?
Demons?
The largest picture in the long room was of a blue-robed, blue-eyed woman, holding a brown-eyed baby in her arms. The baby was holding another of those "T"-symbols, in a tiny fist.
At the far end of the room was a raised stage — like a king's feasting-platform in a hall — covered with very odd-shaped furniture. A tall, narrow table. A giant cup made of stone. And, hanging over the stage, was another "T"-symbol — this one taller than a tall man, made of wooden beams nailed together. Something big and white was attached to it.
Haki ran to the stage and jumped up. He said, "Odin's eye! Look at all this silver! And gold too!"
Gold was very rare in Norway. Even kings and the richest nobles rarely owned more than one or two items made of this almost-priceless metal.
Haki had never seen so much gold in his life: cups, candle-holders, statues and objects of unknown purpose.
Halfdan walked deeper into the room, saying, "There's nobody here. Let's find the folk first, deal with them, then come back here for loot."
"Fine," Haki said, jumping down from the stage (with a gold candle-holder stuffed into his belt).
Halfdan realized that the thing attached to the big "^" at the far end of the room was a statue of an almost-naked man, hanging by its hands from the tips of the cross-beam. The brown-haired, brown-eyed man's head was surrounded by a circle of bright yellow paint. The eyes of the man-statue stared at Halfdan. When Halfdan moved to one side, the unnerving eyes seemed to follow him.
Splashes of red paint looked like fresh blood, flowing down from the statue's hands. Drops of red paint dribbled down the statue's forehead.
Who was this man?
Why did this room have such a big statue of a torture-victim?
Was he a sacrifice to Tor?
Halfdan did not like this place. It made him nervous. He ordered everybody back outside.
As they stepped out of the building, they heard a loud metallic clanging noise from one of the other buildings. The sound filled the night with clanging noise.
Venn, shocked, listened to the noise in amazement. It was the exact same clanging noise that he had been hearing in his ears ever since the river-battle! But now, suddenly, everybody else could hear it too! Venn giggled. This seemed a sign that Venn had made the right decision, volunteering to join this adventure. A sign from the gods, that revenge for Torvald was near!
Halfdan shouted, "It's an alarm! We've been seen! We're going to split into groups and each take a building!"
He ordered Haki and Sten and six other Fjordane-fighters to one of the smaller buildings, sitting a distance from all of the other buildings.
Haki's group ran with their torches and weapons to that building. The door was locked from the inside.
"No need to be quiet anymore," Haki said, handing his torch to Sten. Haki chopped twice at the wood door, breaking it into falling pieces.
Inside, a short hallway led to another door. It was also locked — but from the outside. Haki lifted the door-latch, pushed open the door and carried his sizzling pine-sap torch inside. Then he stopped, his blue-painted face split into a wide grin.
A young, frightened looking woman with brown hair and freckles was standing by the edge of a bed. She looked about twenty-five years old. Her brown eyes were open but not directed towards Haki standing in the doorway. She wore plain grey clothes, with a grey scarf tied tightly over her head. A "T"-shaped symbol hung from a string on the grey bib covering her chest. No face-paint.
Haki turned to say to his cousin behind him, "Leave me alone here for a while. Go to the next building and wait for me there. I won't be long."
Sten said, "Halfdan won't be pleased if he hears."
"Then don't tell him. Go! Now!"
Sten and the other fighters left, and Haki in the doorway turned back to look at the young woman. She had not moved.
"Good evening," Haki said, not caring if she understood the Norse tongue.
But she did. In a heavy, bizarre accent, she said, "Who are you?"
Haki said, "A friend," and stepped into the room.
"What do you want?"
"Friendship. I'm Haki, a great hero and berserker from a northern land. Do you want to be my friend?"
He closed the door behind him. Now the only light in the room was from the flickering and smoky torch held over Haki's helmet. He stepped towards her and the unmade bed, smiling.
The young woman said, "Leave me alone, please."
Haki noticed that there were no windows. "What is this place? A jail?"
After a pause, the young woman said, "Yes. It's a kind of jail."
"Why are you here?"
After another pause, the young woman said, "They locked me here for being a whore."
"A whore! A whore?"
"Yes. So there is no need to force yourself on me. I will give you sex for free."
And she laughed.
Haki was confused. He had been expecting screams by now.
A whore?
With her eyes still not looking directly at him, the young woman said, "How do you want me?"
"Any way I want."
She took a step towards his voice, saying, "Anything to please you, you hero from the north."
She smiled; it looked fake.
She stepped closer to him, seeming to n
ot even notice the huge ax on his shoulder.
What was wrong with her?
Haki scowled. He took the ax from his shoulder and moved the blade towards the young woman's face.
No reaction.
As the oiled, gleaming iron neared her face, she did not move or glance at it. Only when he touched the sharp edge of the battle-ax to the tip of her freckled nose did she pull her face back, looking surprised.
Haki said, "Can't you see?"
"Not very well. I have been here in the dark for so long that my eyes have forgotten light. Light hurts my eyes. Everything looks like it's in a snow-storm."
"You are blind."
"Not forever. Just until my eyes get used to the light."
"They locked you alone here in the dark just for being a whore?"
"Yes, folk here hate whores. Because we love giving pleasure to men. I was famous for my skill in sex. Should I take off my clothes now?"
Haki laughed. "Fine, whore, show me your skills."
He stepped to the bed and laid his ax onto the messy grey blankets. Holding his torch overhead with his left hand, he used his right to open his silver, beast-shaped belt-buckle.
The young woman started unbuttoning her clothes and dropping them to the floor. When her underpants fell, she was naked. Her body was thin and pale, with narrow hips framing a triangle of wild brown hair; she shivered slightly. But she still did not show much fear.
Haki, by the bed, was lowering his pants with his free hand.
His part was thin and half-limp.
The blind, naked outlander woman said — in a childish-sounding voice — "May I use the pottie?"
"What?" Haki didn't understand the word "pottie".
"Can I piss?"
"Yeah, of course."
She walked to other side of the small room, to a wooden bucket resting on the dirt floor. It was beside a small pile of clean hand-cloths and a small wicker box half-full of dirty ones.
Haki expected her to sit on the bucket to piss. But she bent, grabbed the half-full bucket with both hands and turned to face Haki. She walked fast towards the sound of his heavy breathing.