It was only then he had realised that the beacon on the Hrafn, his only link with the handful of men still aboard the ship, had disappeared.
Moments later he had been stumbling headlong through the wild, rain-lashed night towards the great hall, his mail and weapons weighing heavily upon him, his limbs seeming to move with the agonising inertia of a tormented dream.
As the invaded hall now emptied into the hectic night, Bjólf's men, still dazed with drink, grasped weapons and torches in a chaos of urgent movement, and for the second time that day found themselves hastening towards the gates and the harbour beyond - to face what, none yet knew. Even Atli himself could not be certain. His breathless, fractured exclamations at the door of the hall had been sufficient to raise the alarm and get every man on his feet. Now, as he struggled to keep pace with Bjólf, still gasping from his run and having to shout above the wind and clamour, Atli fought to give an account of the sequence of events that had led to his dramatic intrusion.
While Bjólf and the guests at the feast had been carousing in the mead-glow of the fire's flames, Atli had been stationed upon that lonely rampart, huddled in the icy downpour, helm rattling in the rain, his woollen cape pulled tight against the wind.
The task with which he had been charged was simple - to keep in sight at all times the beacon that had been lit upon the ship. At regular intervals, this torch - mounted upon the prow - was raised and waved from side to side six times by a member of the first night watch. Should it disappear, or fail to move at the appointed time, Atli was to alert those of Bjólf's crew who who manned the gate below. Of these there were four.
On occasion, one or other of the crew would call up to the watchtower, or come to see how Atli fared. Later in the evening, Salómon had even brought up some mead that had been smuggled out of the hall. Atli supped the sweet liquor, and felt its satisfying warmth seep into his bones. Supposedly these things were done out of simple fellowship, to ease a long and lonely watch. But they were also, he suspected, to ensure he was awake. Either way, he was grateful.
Atli spent long periods leaning on the log parapet, at first gazing toward the ship, where a second, dimmer fire could sometimes be seen - a sign of Thorvald's work, applying pitch to the ship's damaged hull - and then staring out towards the dark trees. Something about them pierced him through with a kind of primeval dread. Though he could barely make out their shapes - or perhaps because of it - his mind swam with restless thoughts of the unnameable horrors that lurked within those deep, ages-old shadows. And yet he kept his eyes resolutely, defiantly upon them. It became a challenge, a test of his mettle, to look upon them unflinchingly, to conquer them and the demons they loosed in his imagination.
It was then that the ghastly apparition had appeared.
For a moment, he had been paralysed with shock. But, slowly, his mind began to rationalise what he had seen. Perhaps the weather had put out the torch, and perhaps the figure he had seen was one of the crew, come to fetch fresh fire from the stockade. Then something happened that he could not explain. He saw a glimmer of orange light dart about near the ship, then suddenly erupt into a great column of flame. And, blinking away the drops of rain that coursed from his helm down onto his face, he began to realise that it had not only the leaping, shifting patterns characteristic of a fire, but a distinct shape. The shape of a man.
As he watched the form with growing horror, he saw that it was moving. It advanced slowly, steadily, with a kind of staggering gait, its arms reaching out before it. Then, flame leapt up again just within their reach, as if a second creature of fire had been spawned by the first, its shape more wild and disordered this time, and a horrible, agonised shriek tore through the night.
Atli flew to the top of the ladder. Below, his fellows had already registered the scream, and he met a cluster of pale, upturned faces. "Fire!" he shouted, his voice coming feebly and getting lost on the wind. Then again, with more urgency as he pointed over the rampart, "Fire!"
Lokki, frozen in the middle of a trick involving three walnut shells, dropped everything and leapt at the bar upon the gate. The others, slower off the mark, were soon upon it, hurling the beam away into the mud and squeezing out through the gate the second it was wide enough for them to pass, torches in their hands.
"Get the others!" called Halfdan. They pounded off into the night as Atli scrambled and slipped down the rain-soaked rungs of the ladder.
When the party of men from the feast finally reached the gate they found its keepers, leaning against the gates in desperation, like children pressed against a door, as if such efforts were capable of preventing anything but the most feeble intruder. Godwin and Gunnar thrust the men aside and hauled the gates open. Beyond, no light could now be seen. The fact alarmed Atli. For a moment, he feared he had been somehow mistaken, that he had thrown his new shipmates into confusion for nothing. But at least the ship was not ablaze. Then, with an icy chill, he remembered Lokki, Halfdan and the others. Where were the lights of their torches?
"Farbjörn, Arnulf, Hrafning," barked Bjólf. "Stay and guard the gate." He glanced back towards the hall, where, in the semi-darkness, a lone figure was hobbling, resolutely. "And when Kjötvi gets here, tell him to join you."
With that, weapons drawn, they advanced into the raven-black, cloaks flying, their own torch flames roaring as the wind whipped and pulled at them. Atli could not suppress a shudder at the sound of the gates thudding closed behind them.
The band moved swiftly down the path, long wet grass soaking their legs as they went. They were lighter on their feet without their armour, and emboldened by drink, but each of the two dozen men also had Halldís's words echoing in their ears. Torches aloft, they wheeled around at the slightest sound or movement on either side.
"You say they all followed, boy? All four?" demanded Bjólf. Atli reluctantly affirmed it.
"There should be eight men out here," called Gunnar over the sounds of the storm. "They cannot simply have disappeared."
"Spread out," ordered Bjólf. "And stay sharp."
As grass gave way to mud, another silent, searing flash cracked open the night sky, illuminating the harbour for an instant and throwing out stark shadows: the eerie, slender prow of the ship standing like a lone sentinel, its shape reflected in the shallow water.
"There!" shouted Finn, and surged ahead as they were again plunged into darkness.
They followed Finn's flame as the thunder boomed and wrenched the air. Near the edge of the water, half-lit by Finn's torch, was an irregular shape from which a choking smoke was rising. Finn crouched over it, then recoiled. As the others approached, their light showed it to resemble a body, lying on its back, its arms held before it in twisted, horribly contorted gestures. Every part was burned down almost to the bone, blackened and crusted with what now passed for flesh, smoke still billowing from its cavities.
"Is that a man?" muttered a horrified Gunnar.
"Another here!" called Njáll, splashing into the water, close to the ship. Bjólf, Atli and several others followed. As with the first, whisps of smoke were tugged and whipped from it by the wind, the hiss of heat that issued from it audible even above the storm. Yet this one was far less destroyed - presumably because the water into which it had collapsed had quenched the flames. The lower legs were virtually untouched by fire, the upper body still partly protected by the blackened metal of its hauberk. The helmed head, however, had borne the brunt of the burning. Crouching, Njáll turned it over in the water, cursing as he scalded himself on the still-hot metal of its mail. Magnus knelt by him. The face was blistered and blackened to a crust, the hair quite gone, a steady smoke coming from the helm like steam from a hot cauldron. But there was no doubting its identity now. With sinking heart, Atli recognised one of the crew. "Eldi," confirmed Magnus.
"Hoy!" All turned in alarm at the voice. There, aboard the ship, dimly visible in the feeble light, a figure was clambering over the gunwale. Advancing to meet him, they could see now it was Einarr, one of the s
hip's watchmen, his eyes wide, his face white and stained with blood. He had lost his helm, and his dark hair - normally in thick plaits - had come loose, its wet strands flying about in the wild air. In his right hand, his sword - gripped as though his life still depended on it - was blackened along the blade by some oily ichor. He staggered. Godwin ran to support him.
"The others?" demanded Bjólf.
Einarr shook his head. "I am alone," he panted, his voice strained. "I stayed with the ship... they went after them. Those things... We threw them off... they could not climb back aboard. But more came... I was the lucky one."
"They?" said Bjólf. "Who? You were attacked?"
At that, Einarr, to the bemusement of his fellows, began to laugh. It grew in volume and intensity, strange and hollow, until finally the moment of hysteria passed and he seemed to gain some measure of control. "By our own men..." he chuckled drily. "The fallen..."
Fjölvar and Finn had meanwhile climbed aboard the ship, looking it up and down.
"You won't find them!" called Einarr. "They've fled the nest!"
Finding little sense in his words, Bjólf looked to Fjölvar and Finn. "Anything?"
But where the bodies of their three dead comrades had been, there now was nothing but a single length of ragged linen, someone's funeral shroud. Fjölvar held it up for Bjólf to see, and simply shrugged, his expression baffled.
Bjólf turned back to Einarr, a deep dread now gripping him. "Where are they? The fallen men? Someone took them?"
"No! They attacked us. Our dead." Einarr's eye suddenly caught sight of the blackened, smoking skeleton that lay in the mud, and he fell silent. Staring, wide-eyed, yet half averting his gaze as if not wishing to acknowledge it, he extended his arm slowly and pointed at the thing. "Kylfing."
Bjólf glared at him. "But Kylfing was a corpse," he said. "His flesh grey. The flies on him... we all witnessed it."
"I saw him. And the others too. As clear as I see you now." He turned and looked around as if reliving the nightmarish events. "Oddvarr rose first. We did not see him. He got Grimm from behind, sank his teeth into his neck. Grimm struggled, took both of them over the starboard side, and the beacon too. We heard shouts, running, splashing of water. Thorvald... he went after them, into the darkness towards the trees. Told us to stay with the ship. Then Gøtar came... his eyes were empty, his teeth..." Einarr shuddered at the memory. "Eldi and I fought him - gave blows that should have felled a mortal man. With a spear I thrust at his neck, pushed him over the side. Still he was not dead. We heard him moving in the darkness. Thorvald called to us in the distance then, and it seemed the movements we heard went off towards the sound. Then it was Kylfing's turn, his face swollen, grotesque..."
He moved toward the ship, making wild gestures as he continued his description. "Eldi had a plan. I fought with Kylfing, could not stop him, but forced him over the port side. Eldi was waiting there. He had the pail of pitch that Thorvald had been using, and a brand from the fire beneath. He lured Kylfing a safe distance from the ship, then hurled the pitch over him and set the body afire. But he must also have spilled pitch upon himself. Kylfing did not stop - came at him even as the flames consumed his flesh. The fire caught. Eldi burned as I watched.
"Then there was fighting in the darkness. Out there, the others from the stockade. More of the creatures had come. They showed no interest in the ship. But I could hear them moving. I stayed quiet."
A sound made them all turn, weapons drawn, limbs tense. A splashing of water followed by a kind of grunt. Somewhere, off to the left of the ship, close to the trees, something was approaching. Bjólf strained to see past the torchlight. As the moon broke briefly through the clouds, a pale shape loomed dimly, staggering out of the night. It was weird - unrecognisable. Then a familiar voice called out. Halfdan. As they watched, he came splashing heavily along the edge of the water, sword in one hand, the other struggling to support the stocky, flagging figure of Thorvald. Halfdan raised his sword hand in greeting. "Don't kill us," he called, somehow managing to cling to a grim kind of humour. "We're friendly." Others rushed to their aid. Thorvald was shivering and bloody, but both seemed to have escaped serious harm.
Sheathing his sword, Bjólf placed his hands on Thorvald's shoulders, looking hard into the scratched and bloodstained face he knew so well. He knew if anyone could give a rational account that would dispell Einarr's mad ramblings, it was Thorvald. "Salómon?" Bjólf demanded. "Lokki? The other men..?"
Thorvald, breathing heavily, looked across at Einarr. Something seemed to pass between them then. Thorvald simply shook his head. Halfdan, too, cast his eyes down into the black muddy water, his humour quite gone. "We found Salómon back there, near the trees." Magnus grabbed a torch from Finn and made to move in that direction, but Halfdan stopped him with the flat of a hand upon his chest. He shook his head solemnly. "What is left is beyond help."
"Burned?" asked Gunnar.
"Eaten."
The men stared at each other. Thorvald looked about for a moment, frowning at the silent, sickened faces, as if unable to believe his own words. "I would blame it on wolves or some other beast if I could. But it is not so."
Bjólf scanned the dark edge of the forest, squinting through the rain, trying to make sense of this nightmare. "What of the rest?" he insisted. "Grimm? Hrolf?"
"I searched as best I could..." Thorvald could only shake his head again, then let it fall.
"I saw a body taken off by the river, too far out to reach," said Einarr. He shrugged. "It could have been Grimm."
"Two dead. Three missing," said Bjólf. "And for what?" He glared into the surrounding faces of his fellows. "Whoever this enemy may be, they will pay for the outrage they have visited upon us this night."
There was a grunt of steely defiance among the men. Thorvald looked at him pleadingly. "Swords do not stop them. We have not seen a foe like this before." He placed a hand on Bjólf's shoulder. Bjólf shook it off irritably.
Einarr spoke then, his voice now clear and grave. "You have fire in your blood - the fire of revenge. But know this: death stalks around us. And it will take us all unless we leave this cursed place."
Suddenly the sky was rent by a lightning flash - so close that it set the air crackling, the roar of thunder rolling immediately behind.
"We have company," said Godwin, swinging his axe over his shoulder. Following his line of sight, Bjólf could just make out a random scattering of shadows between them and the torch flames upon the distant rampart - a dozen or so slowly moving forms. He scowled at them, unblinking in the flickering, wind-lashed torchlight, the rain coursing down his face.
Without breaking his gaze he addressed this crew, his voice stern - measured but simmering with fury. "We did not seek to fight these men, but they have chosen to make a fight of it nonetheless. So be it. I know nothing of ghosts and trolls, but whoever, or whatever, these men are, they look to be locked in flesh and bone, just like the rest of us." He drew his sword. "And bone is not as hard as steel."
All around, men readied themselves.
"Forget the ship," said Bjólf. "Let's see what these death-walkers are really made of." And with that, his wind-blown hair whipping in his face, he moved swiftly toward the lurching shadows.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
STEEL AND BONE
As Bjólf advanced, the men following in his wake, his speed quickened. The stride became a jog, and the jog a run, until Atli found that he was struggling to keep pace. The vikingr captain flew forward, eyes fixed, head low, sword held wide and ready. It was with sudden alarm that the boy realised he was now hurling himself headlong towards his first battle, unprepared, in rain and darkness, and against a foe who, without the benefit of weapons - for he could see none among their silhouettes - had utterly destroyed several of the hardest men he had ever encountered, and left the survivors with their nerves, and perhaps their sanity, shaken to their roots. He could not yet understand how Bjólf - careful, thoughtful Bjólf - could so hurl himself towar
ds potential destruction. And yet he ran, caught up in the impetuosity of the moment, forcing the fear that gripped him into the straining tendons of his fingers, tightening them around his shield grip and seax, and thanking fate for having this happen while he was on that rampart, in full armour.
For Gunnar, squelching heavily behind, sword in one hand and axe in the other, Bjólf's behaviour was no longer cause for surprise. He had often joked, over the years, that there were two Bjólfs. There was Bjólf the Careful, the cautious sea captain, the thinker and planner - even, he sometimes thought, the politician. And then there was Bjólf the Reckless. The fighter. The killer. Most of the time, the former held sway. But then, every once in a while, he was pushed by circumstances beyond some invisible limit. That was when the other burst forth. There was no gradual transition. The change was sudden, absolute, devastating. The man became a whirlwind of violence: merciless, unstoppable, and knowing no fear. Gunnar felt a pang of pity for any whose fate placed them in Bjólf's way when the battle-fire was in him. Whether even this would be enough against this new, weird enemy, however, he could not begin to know.
As the swaying figures loomed out of the darkness, the flickering, uneven light from the crew's torches finally struck the faces of the first few. Several of Bjólf's men faltered, shocked at what they saw - pallid, lifeless flesh, dead, dry pits for eyes, cavernous, hollow cheeks, gaping, shapeless mouths - some with the meat rotted to black, oily pulp, others little more than dry skin stretched over bone. But they had only moments to process the information before the inevitable, bloody clash.
The nearest, directly in Bjólf's path, appeared in most respects surprisingly presentable; his clothes, although bloodstained and muddy, were unworn and of fine quality; his hair and beard neatly braided into plaits in fashionable style, fastened at their ends with short, neat lengths of coloured material. For an instant Atli convinced himself this must be someone come down from the village, that this whole attack was perhaps a mistake. The belief was short-lived. As the flames burned closer, his gaze fell upon the man's half-illuminated face.
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