Viking Dead

by Toby Venables

  It was Klaufi who interrupted Bjólf this time, even as the sounds of the distant death-walkers in the edges of the wood crunched and crackled in their ears. "My hands are tied. I must abide by the laws laid down by the council of the hall of... of..."

  His voice trailed away. But it was not words that had stopped him. Down below, Bjólf's eyes blazed with a furious flame, his sword raised at the end of his muscular arm, its point directed at Klaufi's neck as if to take the old man's head, the wrath on his darkened face so palpable, so extreme, that the old man felt it might somehow strike him dead with a mere glance.

  "Open these gates, you old fool," rumbled Bjólf, his voice cutting through the dying storm, "or, by the gods, my final act upon this earth will be to hack them to splinters and watch the dead tear the living flesh from your wretched, worthless bones."

  At that, Gunnar gave a terrifying roar and charged at the gate, sinking his axe into the timber with a shuddering crash that sent chips of wood and bark flying. Klaufi stepped back in dread as the watchtower swayed. Godwin came forward next, axe held high... then Thorvald... then ten more axes with stout arms and strong backs behind them, ready to batter the gates to oblivion.

  Before they could strike, another pale, alarmed face appeared above. Halldís. She was panting, breathless.

  "They're our guests!" she cried at Klaufi. "Our allies! For Freyja's sake, open up!"

  There was a clatter and a rumble behind the timbers, and the gates swung open. Bjólf's men poured in, casting hateful glances at the mob that had assembled there. A space cleared around the warriors.

  Kjötvi stepped forward, his good ear bloodied. "They tried to stop us," he said. Farbjörn, Arnulf and Hrafning were close behind, each of them showing the signs of having been in a struggle. "Things got a little heated," continued Kjötvi. "We stopped short of using weapons. But some were not so considerate." His hand went to his right ear, which, Bjólf could now see, had had its top third sliced off, making it now almost a perfect match for the other. Bjólf looked around at the suddenly quiet crowd, baffled by this turn of events.

  Hrafning read the look in his eye. "It was him stirred them up," he said, and nodded towards a pale figure that lurked at the back of the motley throng. Bjólf just had time to catch sight of the sickly, self-satisfied features of Óflár before he melted away into the shadows.

  "Would you like me to gut the little weasel?" muttered Gunnar. But Bjólf - cautious Bjólf - raised a hand to stop him.

  Others from the hall arrived - at their head, Frodi pushed through to the front of the crowd, looking on mortified and apologetic. Here, at least, a man with some sense of honour, thought Bjólf. The crowd then parted for Halldís, down from the watchtower, who wore a similar expression, though perhaps tempered by other, more complex feelings as she looked at Bjólf. She stepped up to him.

  "Do not blame them," she said. "They have lived in fear for too long, for reasons that you now begin to understand."

  "Yes, I begin to," said Bjólf, his voice hard and unsympathetic. He turned his back on her and faced his men. "We leave at first light."

  Halldís stared at him in disbelief, and, stepping forward, grabbed his arm and spun him around. "You cannot leave." There was urgency - even yearning - in her voice.

  "Can I not? I am master of my own destiny."

  "But your task here is not done," she pleaded, a note of anger entering her voice. "You came to help us."

  He took a step toward her, forcing her to back away from him. "We are not the men you sent for. We never were. Our coming here was pure chance. Our leaving, however, is a matter of choice."

  "You accepted our hospitality," muttered Frodi, glowering. "We thought you honourable men."

  "Think what you like," replied Bjólf. He would get over Frodi's accusations. But Halldís' despair stung him. He turned again. "We will sleep tonight wherever we are welcome." He gestured to the gate. "Out there, in our ship if we must."

  "No!" said Halldís. She checked herself, then let her gaze fall, despondently contemplating the churned mud at their feet. "You are still our guests. You have my father's hall."

  At this, the old woman Ragnhild suddenly lurched forward from the crowd, her arms raised in a weird gesture, her eyes rolling back in her head, a long, loud groan escaping her lips. Bjólf was ready with his sword but, to his surprise, she then pulled a small soft leather bag from inside her gown, tipped the contents upon the ground and fell to her knees. With her face still raised to the heavens, she passed her hand over the small, white tablets of bone that lay scattered in front of her. Runestones.

  "Is the old woman a runecaster?" asked Gunnar, frowning at this unexpected outburst.

  "Our seer is dead," said Halldís. "But Ragnhild has the gift."

  The old woman pulled at her hair until it hung about her wildly, wailed once more, then cast her eyes over the scattered runestones.

  "I see it!" she moaned. "The hidden purpose of the women at the well, the immortal dísir. It is clear, our salvation comes in the shape of a ship. I see it marked out in flame! Upon it are the great warriors from other lands who will deliver us. The enemy will be destroyed, the curse wiped out, and the victors shall live forever as esteemed heroes to us all!" She looked up at Bjólf, a great smile spreading across her face. "You will not leave us. Your fate is here, Bjólf son of Erling. You and all your men. And it is good!"

  Bjólf looked her in the eye for a moment. "Let me show you what I think of fate."

  And with that, he turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE LEAVE-TAKING

  "What did you, as a man of religion, make of that?" said Bjólf to Gunnar as the crew strode off to gather their possessions.

  Gunnar thought about his answer for several moments as they ran the gauntlet of bemused villagers. "Frankly?" he said, finally. "Utter bollocks. If that woman has the gift, then the emperor of Byzantium can wear my arse for a hat."

  Bjólf smiled. "Don't hold back, Gunnar. Tell me what you really think."

  "I think that the sooner we're out of here, the better off we will be."

  Bjólf clapped him on the shoulder. "For once, big man, we are in total agreement."

  Back at the hall, the men passed out the mail, armour and remaining weapons that had been stowed in the small, dark antechamber at its entrance. All understood that, this night, whatever the etiquette of the hall, they would sleep with their weapons close at hand. No one interfered with their activities. Halldís was nowhere to be seen, and all the others maintained a discreet distance. Atli, still shaking from his ordeal, looked forward to a few hours of warmth and sleep by the hall's great hearth and some of the leftovers from the feast.

  Bjólf looked over those who were injured. Thankfully, all were minor wounds. The one significant exception was the horrible wound upon Jarl's neck, where the female death-walker had taken a piece of him. That would require Magnus's expert eye. In many respects, Jarl had been lucky; the bite had stopped just short of the parts that would have threatened his life. But, although Jarl refused to show it, Bjólf knew that the ragged tear had left its victim in excruciating pain. And then there was the question of this strange pestilence. Had it been passed to Jarl? Bjólf did not wish to think about that for the moment. Jarl had maintained a kind of dogged, forced good humour since they had returned to the safety of the stockade, as if he too wished only to put it from his mind.

  Bjólf turned from him. "Magnus?" he called. "There's a patient for you here." But the old monk was nowhere nearby. Bjólf sighed impatiently and scanned the low-lit interior of the hall. "Magnus?" he called. But there was no reply. No movement.

  Others began to look around. Only gradually did they realise that Magnus was not among them.

  "Has anyone seen him?" called Bjólf, his sense of unease growing. "Has anyone seen him since we came back through the gate?"

  No one had.

  They searched for hours beyond the stockade wall, all the while watching and list
ening nervously for more of the shuffling, vacant ghouls. Having learned the lesson from their earlier encounters, each man went about his melancholy business in silence, thankful that the rain had abated. But for a distant scuffling or groaning carried on the breeze, there was no more sign of the death-walkers that night. Yet all secretly feared what they might find.

  The sky was beginning to lighten when they discovered him. It seemed he had doubled back in an attempt to outflank the lumbering enemy, and while clambering over a large outcropping of rock near the left bank of trees had fallen into a cleft in the grey, moss-covered stone. He lay awkwardly in the narrow, grave-like gap, his temple smashed and bleeding, his eyes rolled back in his head, his breath barely perceptible. He had fallen victim not to the death-walkers, not to his own valour or to some rash, foolhardy act, but to nothing more than a meaningless accident.

  They took him to the hearth, tended his wounds and kept him warm. Fjölvar knew a little of the healing arts, and did what he could. Halldís sent her most learned practitioner - a crook-backed woman with a knowledge of herbs - but herself remained distant. The cruellest irony was that the only one who really knew how to deal with such a grievous wound was Magnus himself. Magnus the Healer. Magnus the Gentle. Magnus the Wise. There was knowledge in him that would be forever lost.

  Bjólf sat with him for the rest of the night. Atli, though exhausted and craving sleep, sat up too, Magnus's shallow, rasping breaths marking the time until they were to leave.

  In his long and colourful career, spanning more voyages than he could recount, Bjólf had experienced all manner of farewells. Some were joyous and celebratory, some marked by tears and anguish. A good number were accompanied by the battle-roar and clatter of weapons, while yet others were silent and stealthy, watched only by the plashing fish and the ravens that croaked among the dawn treetops.

  But never had he known a leave-taking so bleak, so dismal.

  The villagers, for the most part, remained in their homes. Bjólf and his men - kitted out much as they had been for their dramatic arrival the previous day, but now curiously drained of the pride and bold defiance that had once inspired in them - set out in silence beyond the stockade, largely unregarded. Four men carried the unconscious Magnus between them in a makeshift bier. Though all knew it, none spoke of the fact that he was dying. All loved the old man too much to admit it.

  It was not until they were upon the path leading down to the muddy harbour that the full extent of the previous night's carnage became clear. All around them, from one bank of trees to the other, dozens of bodies - or parts of bodies - littered the ground, all hacked and hewn and in various horrid states of mutilation and decay, a ghastly, stomach-turning stench hanging about the place, too heavy for the morning breeze to carry off. Twisted limbs stuck up into the air, some in tortured gestures. Rocks and grass and mud were occasionally stained with the black ichor, the gentle undulations of the landscape jarringly pockmarked here and there by shapeless heaps of gore, or denuded bone from which the flesh had slipped or been slashed. It was as if, in that one night, the dead of ages had been hauled shrieking from their graves, wrenched apart and scattered about to be picked at by birds and beasts. But there were no beasts to pick at this flesh, and not a single bird sang.

  The fog had lifted. The sun shone. But all served only to make the horror the more immediate, the more inescapable. The final atrocity was the fact that what little had remained of Salómon and Eldi from the previous night had now completely disappeared - taken by whom, or what, none could tell. Of the others - Grimm, Lokki and Hrolf - nothing more was ever seen again. The night had swallowed them. As they made the final approach to the ship, through bone-strewn mud and water, all tried not to imagine the fates of their fellows, or shuddered visibly at the unwelcome thought.

  As the last of the rainwater was bailed, the oars were thrust out and the vessel rowed into the river where it was turned slowly downstream, Grimmsson's rowing boat towed behind. Bjólf stood at the stern, noting with a bitter pang of despair the gaps in the rowing benches, doggedly refusing to turn back towards the stockade. Had he done so, he might just have made out the solitary figure of Halldís upon the rampart, a blue cloak wrapped tightly around her against the cold morning breeze as she gazed at the gradually departing ship, a look of empty desolation upon her face. But it was the certain knowledge that she alone was watching that kept Bjólf's back turned on the village of the daughter of Hallbjörn.

  It remained so until long after the place was gone from view.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

  They had barely departed when Magnus finally gave up the ghost. For hours afterwards they followed the winding course of the river in silence, the wind in their faces. The channel became broader, the turns longer and more meandering, and here and there it began to fork off into other tributaries, some of which were near-choked with overhanging trees and creepers. But, bit by bit, the banks became more favourable to the presence of men; the vegetation thinned, seeming to spring forth with a more youthful vigour. No longer the impenetrable, primordial murk of the cursed land they had left behind, but fresh and inviting, the penetrating sunlight clearing the airy forests of the dank moulds and fungi that had weighed so heavily upon the air of that weird domain. To port, far beyond the trees, the land rose to craggy, mountainous uplands whose jagged tops shimmered in a hazy morning mist. Beyond them, Bjólf surmised, lay the steep-sided fjord which led to the site of their encounter with Grimmsson's ship. Yet nearby, the banks' edges were shallow and inviting, the grass lush, the soil dark, the trees lofty yet not oppressive, their branches filled once more with the songs of birds.

  It felt like emerging from a nightmare, and yet, even this began with the end of a life.

  Looking down upon the neatly wrapped corpse of Magnus, Bjólf called out to his crew.

  "Heave to!"

  Thorvald leaned on the tiller. The men shipped the oars, and Finn threw out the anchor. They would land here and rest a while. Perhaps hunt some game. And, most of all, they would give Magnus a decent burial. He, at least, would be properly laid to rest. It would not quite be the funeral he deserved - no array of rich accoutrements to accompany him to the next world (in truth, Bjólf was uncertain what warrior trappings, if any, were appropriate to the Christian heaven). But the spot was tranquil and beautiful, with dappled sunlight and scattered clumps of fragrant herbs here and there - the very ones the old man had once so carefully gathered to ply his craft - and Bjólf knew that, to Magnus, this would be worth more than all the wealth and ceremony of a king.

  With the ship safely anchored a short distance from the shore, Bjólf took his place upon the steering deck, the body of Magnus at his feet, and turned to his men.

  "I am no religious man, but Magnus followed the White Christ, and while I profess no knowledge of gods or their ways, it is only right that we honour him in his own manner, out of love and respect for the man we knew." A general mutter of approval passed through the assembled company. "But also, I wish to pay him my own tribute, this last time. There are others for whom I would like to have done the same, others we have lost. I cannot stand over their bodies and speak words of praise at their deeds. We have been denied that right. And so, my words over this, our most recently fallen, go out in honour of them all." He paused for a moment, head lowered, thinking carefully about the form of his words.

  "Magnus was a great friend. A fearless man and a generous one, whose skills in healing we all have had reason to thank over the years. Some of us live today only because of him." There were nods of assent. "I remember when we first found him, locked in a filthy cell, drunk and baying for the blood of his abbot - branding him a coward and a hypocrite in the foulest possible language..." Another laugh, more raucous this time. "This was not what I had come to expect of a Christian monk. The very next moment, he was telling us where the abbot's silver was hidden and begging to be taken away from that hell-hole. Somehow I sensed we had fo
und - what can I call it? - a kindred spirit. He began as our guest, became our friend. Our teacher. Such were the qualities of the man..." Bjólf cleared his throat, looked suddenly self-conscious and uncertain, then pressed his flattened palms together awkwardly in an unfamiliar gesture. This was to be, he hoped, how Magnus might have wanted it. His eyes sought out Odo amongst the men crowded on the deck. Odo nodded discreetly to confirm that Bjólf was doing it right.

  "Man comes from earth, and returns to earth," Bjólf began, hesitantly. He'd heard parts of the sacred book from Magnus many times before, but now he was starting to wish he'd listened more closely. It all seemed to jumble together in his head. "We commend his soul to... to... the hall of Christ..." Was that right? He recalled that Christ and his men were sailors, but what else? He searched his memory, trying to find somewhere in it the sound of Magnus's voice. "Long may he feast there... at the... last supper of his God..." A groan came from somewhere. Was his attempt at this really that bad? He pressed on, regardless. "And revel in that heroic company... until the great day of his... earthly resurrection." Yes, now he remembered. A familiar phrase popped into his head, as if Magnus himself had uttered it in his ear. He spoke it triumphantly: "The Christ told his men, 'I am the resurrection and the life'..."

  As he spoke the words, a second, greater groan came from the deck. With it was a sound which seemed utterly incongruous - the slow tearing of fabric. Before Bjólf could grasp what was happening, the front few rows of the crew recoiled suddenly, crashing into those behind, and an ungainly white shape seemed to loom out of nowhere. It staggered drunkenly before him, shreds of stretched and rent linen unravelling and falling away from its face as the thing within emerged like a moth from its silken cocoon.

  Magnus. And not Magnus.

  Bjólf was momentarily paralysed, not with fear, but with disbelief. Others seemed similarly stricken. In the weird, still silence that followed, the eerily frozen company stood tense and motionless, expressions of horror and incredulity upon their faces, as the ghoulish figure wearing their friend's features swayed uneasily before them, its arms still part-swaddled by the remains of its wrappings. Its head turned stiffly, twitching, taking in its surroundings like a ghastly newborn. Its feet shuffled and it lurched suddenly around to face the body of men. At the sight of them - of this great feast of flesh - the expressionless mouth lolled open, spilling drool upon the gnarled wood of the deck. From it came another horrible, imbecilic wail.