CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
GANDHÓLM
With good weather and the wind in their sail, the majority of the crew suddenly found themselves bereft of purpose. For the first time in what seemed an age, there was nothing that demanded to be done - nothing to guard, no one to fight, no threat of death.
It was, Bjólf knew, the calm before the storm. Something for them to savour. He sat with Haldís near the stern, his shipmates scattered about them, but while others relaxed, his mind was still working, running ahead to the challenge that lay before them. It was no more than a series of practical problems to which solutions needed to be found - problems that could be broken down, worked out, ultimately solved. The only issue was, these problems would cost lives.
"Tell me," he said to Halldís, "who are these mysterious masters who Skalla serves?"
Halldís sighed, looked out across the water. "No one knows," she said. "We have had dealings with them, of course. My husband, Hunding - he went there, negotiated with them, brokered the first truce." She fingered the black and red braided bracelet upon her wrist. "That is where this came from." She looked downcast for a moment, then gathered herself. "But even he did not see the masters themselves. Skalla is their only intermediary. Some say they are gods."
Gunnar looked at Bjólf, but Bjólf gave no response.
"You have said little of Skalla himself," he said after a pause.
"There is little to say," said Halldís. "Little that I wish to think about."
"But you spoke of a score that you have to settle," said Bjólf. "This is personal for you."
Halldís stared down at the deck again. "Because of him, my husband is lost." She looked Bjólf in the eye, shrugged with feigned indifference. "Don't worry - I know full well he is dead, although for months I held out hope. But that is not the main reason. Skalla murdered my father."
Gunnar raised his eyebrows. "You kept that one quiet."
"Can you blame me? Do you know what it's like to live with the shame of your father having been killed by his slave?"
Gunnar puffed out his cheeks in amazement. "Skalla was a slave! This just gets better and better."
Bjólf glared at him. Sometimes he thought the big man spent too much time on board ship and not nearly enough among regular people.
Halldís took it in her stride. "It is what made him so dangerous. He had nothing to lose. No rule to follow but his own."
"Tell me of this island fortress - the island Skalla's masters inhabit," said Bjólf.
"We've always called it Gandhólm - the island of sorcerors."
"You say you've always called it that?"
"Of course," said Halldís with a frown.
"What are the odds?" said Njáll with a laugh. "An island called 'the island of sorcerors' which becomes a home to sorcerors."
"It's fate," nodded Gunnar. Bjólf glared at him again.
"Maybe Skalla's masters chose it because they liked the name," chipped in Godwin.
"No, no..." said Halldís, frowning more deeply, her expression one of confusion. "Do you not know? Did no one tell you?"
All looked blankly at each other, then back at Halldís.
"There was no island before the masters."
It was left to Bjólf to speak. "Perhaps you'd better explain what you mean by that."
Halldís looked about at the puzzled, expectant faces, cleared her throat, then began.
"It was five years ago, about this time of year. Things were quite normal then, as they had been for generations. Then, one night, without warning, all the animals about Björnheim began to bleat and whinny and crow as if some terrible disaster were about to befall. They kicked and bit at their stalls, and just as suddenly fell silent again. The sky lit up, as bright as daytime, but white, like lightning. The ground shook with a terrible roar, as if the earth were turning itself inside out.
"Then the flood came. A great wave, surging along the river. Our dwellings in the village are upon a hill; they survived. But the other farms in the lowlands were not so lucky. Those who lived to tell the tale said the water was hot, as if boiled in a cauldron. That it brought with it strange things. Within days the floodwater had abated, but from that night, Hössfjord had a new island."
"What?" exclaimed Gunnar. "It just rose up one night, right out of the water?"
"Or fell from above," said Halldís.
"An island that fell from the sky? This is madness! A story of a rock thrown by a giant is one thing. But this..."
"I have no explanation for it," said Halldís. "I can only tell things as they have happened."
Gunnar stared at the ground. "I know what you will say, Bjólf, but it certainly sounds like sorcery to me."
"I do not believe it," said Bjólf. "Will not believe it. Where is the evidence?"
Gunnar, still staring at the deck, spoke in a low, quiet voice. "Berserker warriors, raised from the dead?"
"If they are sorcerors, why not destroy us with a wave of the hand? Turn us into toads? And why does the pestilence also afflict Skalla's men? They are no sorcerors, Gunnar - or, if they are, they are very bad ones."
Gunnar fell silent.
Bjólf questioned Halldís further about the fortress - its strengths and weaknesses - but her knowledge was soon exhausted. It remained an enigma, even to her; a mystery that left Bjólf troubled by the multitude of unanswerable questions it raised. Suddenly it had struck him that he was rushing into battle against an enemy of completely unknown powers, and unknown potential - something his uncle had always warned him against. But what choice did he have? Their future, whatever it was, now hurtled towards them with an unstoppable momentum; a confrontation in which all questions would ultimately be answered, everything finally revealed.
When the afternoon sun was in the sky, Halldís went and stood up on the prow, her attention focused intently upon the left bank of the fjord. She had told Thorvald to keep in close to that shore - only that way, she said, could their approach remain hidden from the ever-watchful eyes of Gandhólm. Then, up ahead, the fjord seemed to bend sharply to the left, its further reaches obscured by a long, projecting spur of land off their port bow. When she recognised the place, Halldís jumped down from the prow, her disposition suddenly agitated.
"Put in here," she said, pointing to a thin, sandy strip in the crook of the promontory. "The island lies immediately beyond this spur."
At the signal from Bjólf, Thorvald leaned on the tiller. The sail was dropped, the mooring lines thrown ashore.
"We reach the far side overland, through the trees," said Halldís as the gangplank was hastily extended. "Then you will see it for yourself."
CHAPTER FORTY
THE GROVE OF DEATH
Their approach was lined with tall, densely-packed trunks of pine and birch, the soil beneath their feet loose and mealy. On the face of it, these were undoubtedly more pleasant surroundings than the forests near Björnheim, but all were aware that they were in the realm of the black guards now. As they marched, drawing inexorably closer to the source of the evil that had afflicted them, the dead, portentous silence of the place began to weigh upon the company. Halldís, especially, became increasingly withdrawn and anxious.
Her mood infected them all. The forest was open to the sky above, but they were hedged around by the massive trees and the gigantic, primordial fronds of bracken that loomed in between. They were on their guard, alive to sounds of movement, but none came. There was no bird, no scurry of squirrel or shrew, not even the buzz of an insect - only the ceaseless sighing of the trees above them. It was a weirdly sorrowful sound, as if the entire forest were in mourning for the passing of its own life. For a time, in that strange realm, it was as if they were the last animate creatures upon earth - so much so, some even found themselves longing for the shambling presence of the undead.
The sight of a figure ahead made Gunnar start, and the company froze about him. Grey and skeletal, dressed in colourless rags, it stood motionless, framed by the trunk of a huge, roug
h-barked pine, its lipless mouth grinning without expression, its empty sockets regarding them in hideous silence. Bjólf made a movement towards it. It did not react. As he crept slowly forward, he saw that it was pinned to the tree by a series of rusty iron spikes - one protruding between the edges of its bared teeth. This was no death-walker - at least, not any more. It was the first sign of life they had encountered since their arrival here.
As they moved beyond that grim guardian, the soil became more gritty and dessicated. The monstrous ferns suddenly subsided, revealing that all around, as far as the eye could see, the forest floor was strewn with human bones. In stunned silence they picked their way past until the field of grim relics finally dwindled - none daring to point out the fact of the absence of even a single human skull. The bodies had been decapitated, the heads removed, by whom, and for what purpose, the troubled company could not tell.
None were sorry to leave that place.
Gunnar, intent in taking his mind off these gloomy matters, sidled up to Bjólf as they walked.
"I was thinking..." he whispered.
"Be careful with that," said Bjólf.
"About when this is all over. About that little farm somewhere..."
"Ah yes, with the barn and the woman."
"I was thinking, maybe Ireland."
Bjólf nodded appreciatively. "Very green. Lots of rain."
Gunnar shook his head. "But then I thought: too boggy."
Bjólf sighed deeply. "How about Scotland?"
"It's practically Norway these days."
"The Frankish kingdoms?"
"Maybe, but that would mean living among Franks."
"Normandy?"
"Bunch of fanatics."
"Russia then?"
"Full of Swedes."
Bjólf sighed again. "Sorry, old man, I'm running out of countries."
Gunnar raised his arms and let them fall in exasperation. "You see? It's hopeless. There must be somewhere out there a man can live in peace. All I ask is a small, sturdy house with a..." He fell silent. Ahead of them, just visible through the trees, as if his words had summoned it up, was a stout-beamed dwelling in a clearing. All drew their weapons. Shields came off backs.
Beyond the cover of the trees they could now see a whole complex of buildings, roughly arranged around a dusty courtyard of dry, barren earth, a circular space at its centre scorched and blackened. Dead leaves and ash blew across it. Somewhere, a door creaked in the wind. Everywhere there was an atmosphere of abandonment.
Bjólf signalled silently to his men; a nod briefly to left and right. Without a word, two groups, headed by Godwin and Finn, split off and headed out wide on either side. It was the tactic they had employed at Atli's village, and at many villages before that.
Atli looked around in surprise, uncertain what he should be doing, baffled at the way the men seemed to know Bjólf's intentions without being told. By the time he had realised what was happening, they were already gone. His place - by default, it seemed - was with Bjólf, Halldís and the rest.
They approached the courtyard slowly, warily, passing the open entrance of the timbered house as they did so. Gunnar investigated with silent efficiency, shaking his head as he emerged. Through the open doorway, as they moved on into the open space beyond, Atli glimpsed the same signs of long abandonment that had been evident back at Erling's farm. They kept moving, the only sound the wind gusting through empty spaces, punctuated every now and then by one of Finn or Godwin's men as they investigated the dank interiors upon either side.
The buildings themselves were strange to Atli's eyes. Some had evidently once been ordinary farm outbuildings, probably of the same age as the abandoned house, but had since been crudely adapted or expanded, sometimes employing materials that he could not identify. There were flat, square roofs; iron rods held together with wire and metal pegs; patches of rust grinning through crumbling plaster and peeling paint; featureless partitions of wood that had warped in the wet and were splitting apart; ragged, thin materials hanging in shreds over open windows. Although these ugly features were clearly more recent than the buildings upon which they had grown, they gave a bizarre impression of more advanced decay. The mere sight of them filled Atli with a feeling of dread.
Ahead, he could now see that the large, blackened area had been the site of an immense fire - perhaps a succession of fires. Strange, lumpy remains - part-consumed fragments of wood, odd bits of twisted metal, and what looked like charred bits of bone - were strewn about its ashy centre, seemingly covered in a dark, oily residue. Bjólf stepped carefully into it, felt the ground, and picked his way back out. Finn and Godwin emerged from the last of the outbuildings and shook their heads.
Bjólf picked up speed, moving towards the two larger buildings that lay directly ahead of them. One looked to be a huge barn - long, like Halldís's hall, but with an entirely straight roof and constructed from thick boards through which the wind whipped and howled. To the right of it as they approached, directly opposite, was a smaller and very different kind of structure; low, squat and square and built of uniform grey blocks, with slits for windows. Bjólf stood in the wide gap between the two, looking to one, then the other, then ahead towards a further, smaller clearing beyond, lined with trees. As he caught up with the rest of the company, Atli peered through the huge open doors into the vast, dark space of the barn. At the far end was another doorway, also open, beyond which was dense forest - yet far enough from the opening to admit a dim light. The interior seemed to be divided up into stalls - for animals, he supposed. Whatever they were, they were now long gone.
Opposite was the door to the grey, squat structure, and different from almost every other door Atli had seen here in two important respects: with its heavy planks and thick iron straps it appeared substantial enough to contain wild beasts. And it was closed.
Bjólf looked at Gunnar. "What do you think?"
"I'm trying not to," said Gunnar. "This place... It's like nowhere I've seen. And it has a bad smell."
Bjólf nodded and said to Halldís. "Do you know this place?"
She merely shook her head, her expression troubled, as if the little she knew from the last few moments were already more knowledge than she could bear.
"Well..." began Bjólf. But before he could say another word, a sound made all of them turn. It was the chink of metal on metal, clear and distinct, from somewhere behind the heavy, closed door.
Bjólf approached slowly and silently, and put his shoulder to the door. It resisted, but shifted a crack. Not locked. Gunnar and the others stood with weapons and shields ready. Bjólf shoved with all his strength. The great door scraped half open before grinding to a standstill. Inside, all was black. The sound came again, louder this time. The air that wafted from inside was heavy with the stench of death-walkers.
Bjólf began to creep inside, Gunnar following close behind. Atli had moved up close to Bjólf, and found he was next in line. He faced a choice: follow behind Bjólf and Gunnar, or stand back and let Fjölvar or Halldís pass. He clenched his teeth and plunged in.
Inside, their eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom. Ahead was a straight corridor with several doorways off it, about which rubbish was scattered, and here and there pools of water into which an occasional drip fell. The chink-chink came again, echoing from somewhere deeper inside. As they crept on, they saw that the doorways - through which the only light filtered - were not all wide open as they had initially assumed. Their doors were fashioned from bars of iron: some half open, some seemingly locked shut, but all coated with a fine film of rust. Each chamber had a single slit for a window. Some had damp straw upon the floor, and others were entirely empty; in several, chains hung from the walls. That was the source of the sound they had heard.
It came again, now much closer. Bjólf raised his weapon, moving between the last two doorways. The door to the right - of heavy wood, like the first - was wide open. Beyond was a very different kind of space from the other chambers; still dark, but expansi
ve, cluttered with furniture, at its far end a great, baffling, bulbous shape like a vast, enclosed pot that, as far as Bjólf could see, appeared to be constructed entirely of blackened metal.
The sound came again, directly behind him. He whirled around, sword ready. As he advanced into the opposite room, he heard a shuffling. Another chink-chink. The chamber, like the others, was dark, a shaft of daylight piercing through the slit in the wall, blinding him now to what lay in the deep shadows. He sensed a presence to his right, and turned to face it. For a moment he stood motionless, listening intently, trying to make his eyes penetrate the darkness, to make sense of it. From within the room, out of sight, came a weird, low cry that chilled him to the bone. A cry that was like two cries, in an eerie chorus. Then, with sudden violence, a figure lurched forward out of the gloom, flying at his face. He leapt back - it stopped dead at the limit of its chains, in the full glare of the light, the taut links ringing in the clammy, sickening air.
Bjólf reeled back all the way to the far wall. Seeing his reaction, Gunnar stepped in, ready to fight, followed closely by Atli and Halldís. All gaped at what they now saw. "Gods..." whispered Gunnar, a quiver in his voice.
That it was a death-walker was clear enough. Its flesh was grey and in an advanced state of putrescence - at certain points (its manacled wrists, its damaged knees, the fingers of its clawing hands) turning to the black slime that had become all too familiar. In its empty hideousness, its face, too, confirmed all their expectations of such a creature - the dead, fish-like eyes, the expressionless, lolling mouth, the collapsed, decaying wreck of a nose - all slipping away, by slow, inevitable degrees, from the skeletal foundation beneath.
What raised the sight to a new level of abomination, however, was not any aspect of its deteriorating condition. It was the way in which it had been altered. There, next to that rotting, vacant face - also, impossibly animate, yet with flesh that seemed somehow closer to the bloom of life it had once possessed - was a second head, the neck sewn crudely into a cleft at the side of the first, the stretched, wrinkled flesh, all along the join, glistening and dripping a pustular yellow. And whereas the first face conveyed nothing but the expected blank emptiness, the second, it almost seemed, stared back at them with its own expression of pained horror.
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