She looked up at the crowd. And back at the entrails. Up at the crowd. Back at the entrails. She turned her clotted, moldy head to the heavens. And back to the entrails. She fishugled them about a bit. And finally, she gazed unseeing ahead of her.
Those in the front rows could see that she was now deep in a trance. The colored bits of her eyes were gone. All the while, her head pivoted, side to side. She started to mumble. The mumbles got louder. And if possible, even more incoherent. The volume rose and rose and rose.
The crowd was silent. The islanders leaned forward as much as they could to see as much as they could see.
At last, the oracle let out a monstrous keening. “Eeeeaahaaaaaa!” The crowd jumped back, startled out of their senses. She screeched again, this time throwing her body behind the sound, and she flounced forward and sprawled onto the platform. Seemingly out of control, her body shook and jittered and flailed about. Suddenly she stopped moving.
“Copper hair, eyes of an aged gray,” she said in a deathly monotone.
“The sign of the Red King, Boy King,
“Am I to say?
“Yes, I am, I have an inkling,
“To sacrifice, tonight, on the Yuletide fire,
“The Boy King bound and tied on the pyre.
“Denmark the Red.
“For Odin to return, may he be dead.”
With that final pronouncement, the oracle heaved with exhaustion onto the stage.
“What does that even mean?” Dani shouted up to the stage. “It doesn’t mean anything! You could go either way with that! It doesn’t mean he’s the Boy K—!” Hamish came forward and put a massive hand over Dani’s mouth, muffling her words.
“That is clear enough for me!” Scathe announced to the crowd. “The Boy King of Denmark will be sacrificed to the Viking gods on this pyre in this harbor at sundown!”
The crowd roared so clamorously that the benches reverberated from the noise. The oracle was helped to her feet. She stepped forward and took a bow. Several bows in fact. Asgrim had to come and lead her off the stage by her elbow. She reappeared within seconds with a big platter of sandwiches and started handing them out to those in the front row. An elderly gentleman passed out as she thrust a cheese-and-egg flatbread in his face with blood dripping from her fingers.
“Prepare the girl and the granny for their sacrifice,” Scathe announced to the men.
“What?” Dani said.
Scathe looked down his nose at Dani and Granny. “Like I said on the mountain, I don’t know if you were listening, but I will repeat myself just this once. What I said was, I said something along the lines of, ‘Come back here, you, and if you don’t come back, I’ll chop these two into bits and pieces.’”
“Most eloquently put, sir,” Asgrim said.
“So get ready for the final rays of the sun whence you will be offed.”
Dani and Granny were roughly carried into the longship and strapped to the mast.
“Let the Great Sacrificial Yuletide Festival commence!” Scathe announced to the crowd. “Prepare the dragon for burning! And let our festivities begin!”
The Final Rays of the Sun
Dani and Granny, tied to the mast of the longship, had hardly any time left to effect an escape. The sun was setting but probably wouldn’t fully sink beyond the horizon for another twenty minutes, give or take. They struggled with the ropes at their hands, chests, and feet.
“Can’t help but think, Granny—” Dani said, through a clenched jaw.
“What, dear?”
“—that a penknife would come in very handy around about now!” She cast a sidelong glance at her sheepish granny.
“Frankly, Dani, and I’m not saying a penknife wouldn’t be useful, but all things considered, right at this moment in time, I could murder a mini quiche.”
Dani glared past her great-great-great-grandmother toward the mountain and the lowering sun.
“And now,” Scathe shouted out to the crowd from his podium, taking a lit torch from a stand and thrusting it into the air, “without further ado, we sacrifice the evil Red King of Denmark’s accomplices!”
“Hey!” Dani called out. “You said we’d be sacrificed by the final rays of the sun—the final rays of the sun! There are plenty rays of the sun left! Plenty.”
“Silence, impudent traitoress! When I said ‘the final rays of the sun,’ I meant ‘whenever the heck I feel like it.’ And, whaddya know, I feel like it now,” Scathe said.
Dani turned to face Scathe and look him in the eye. She saw him try to project an air of supremely confident arrogance, but, behind the bravado she caught a flicker of apprehension. She followed his gaze into the crowd.
“Ruairi will not come,” Granny whispered confidently to Dani. Dani didn’t say anything; she was not so sure.
They both turned back just in time to see Scathe’s quick spin and thrust as he flung a lit torch right at them on the deck of the longship. The torch landed with a thump less than three feet from the mast and rolled toward them. It finally came to a stop mere inches from the kindling. The flame didn’t go out. Neither, however, did it threaten to light the kindling. .
Dani and Granny let out a big sigh of relief.
“What happens now? Will someone have to climb in here and move it to the bottom of the mast?” Dani asked.
Granny did not answer. Dani looked at her. When Dani saw Granny’s face, the relief she had felt seconds earlier drained away. Granny was not looking at the lit torch smoldering beside them on the deck of the boat. She was not looking at the setting sun, nor even at Silas Scathe. Granny was looking out over the side of the longship toward the celebrating Yondersaanians, her lifelong friends and acquaintances, who were approaching the longship in even lines, singing and dancing a looping dance. Hundreds of them. Each holding a lit torch.
Granny and Dani had not noticed the music changing. It had gotten louder, more rhythmic, and that there was an insistent beat. They noticed it now.
The villagers’ song of defiance and war accompanied their dance. They approached and retreated in turn, dancing forward, skipping back, then spinning one another around.
At the end of the first chorus, a line of Vikings surged forward from the back, their torches held high, chanting with a fervor to terrify any enemy, “Up HellyAa! Up HellyAa! I’m a Viking. The sea’s the place for me. Up HellyAa!” They stopped abruptly at the edge of the pyre and fired their lit torches forward onto the longship.
“I don’t like this dance,” Dani said.
“I used to love it as a child,” Granny said merrily, thinking back. “Of course, nobody was burned alive when we did it.”
Most of the torches glanced off the side of the boat and landed on the pyre, which lit very easily. A couple made it to the deck of the longship and burned softly there. One landed on the kindling close to Granny’s feet. With her feet bound at the ankles, Granny did her best to kick out and tap at the torch and the kindling around it. It wasn’t very effective, so she tried blowing, which caused the flames to rear up. Alarmed, she used her toes like flippers and flicked from her knees, back and forth, back and forth, until she was able to scatter the wood and reduce their flames.
“You know it’s interesting that they’re using kindling,” Granny said to Dani.
“It is? You’re interested in the kindling right now?” Dani shouted over the growing din.
“Well, yes, because in Viking times, kindling hadn’t been invented yet—”
“Watch out!” Dani screamed as another torch landed a foot away. Its lighted end nudged a stray twig, which glowed orange and then red and slowly broke apart into flickering flame. Granny and Dani watched helplessly as this thin bit of wood, fully ablaze now, spat fat sparks in all directions. While a few of the sparks landed on inhospitable ground, the rest found dry, flammable homes, and the fire spread rapidly.
Granny and Dani concentrated hard on stamping out the flames. They became slowly aware
of the villagers beginning the second verse of their song.
“How does the second verse of this song go, Granny?” Dani asked.
“Let’s just say,” Granny said, “that there is a lovely kind of pattern, a symmetry, if you will, to the verses of this particular song.”
“Uh-huh. Is that right? And just how many verses are there?”
“Oh, there could be hundreds! But I wouldn’t worry about the song becoming boring or repetitive. We’ll be dead long before then.”
“Comforting. Thank you. I can always rely on you to see the sunny side of the situation.”
“Aaaaand here they come! Brace yourself!” Granny flinched as a new wave of Vikings stormed forward, ready to hurl their torches at the enemies tied to the mast of the longship. They swung backward from their hips, levered from their back feet onto their front, and as they prepared to launch their flaming torches into the air toward the deck of the smoldering longship, a voice rang out from the back of the crowd.
“Stop the music! Lay down your torches!”
“And would you look—here he comes now!” Scathe lifted a robed arm and pointed to a distant spot where a small, copper-haired boy dressed in a robe similar to Scathe’s made his way forward. The dancers faltered; the music stopped. The crowd turned to face the approaching red-haired figure.
“Good people of Yondersaay,” Scathe shouted out. “The Red King of Denmark has graced us with his presence!
“No!” Dani and Granny shouted together. “Run, Ruairi! Run away!”
The boy walked calmly forward as the crowd parted with shocked whispers. “You can let them go now. I’m here,” he said in a voice booming and crisp. All eyes were on the little redhead as he slowly and steadily approached the pyre. He never once glanced at Dani and Granny, though he did take in the henchmen dotted through the crowd.
Dani thrashed frantically, desperately trying to free her hands. Granny kicked and flailed, and they both screamed and shouted for Ruairi to run away.
Dani, panicking now, bound and helpless, bereft of ideas but still refusing to give up, felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. Startled, she froze.
“Don’t move!” came a soft voice from behind her. She felt the ropes around her hands being cut. Once she and Granny were released, they looked around and saw it was … Ruairi. He was standing there in his normal clothes with his Swiss Army knife in his hand.
“What? But how?” Dani said.
“What’s happening?” Granny asked, frantically casting her gaze from normal-clothes Ruairi to robed Ruairi and back again.
“Quick, come,” Ruairi said and led them off the ship. “I went back for you; I never really left. It was easy to give the moron twins the slip. I made tracks going one way in the snow and then doubled back. They followed them without even thinking. I hid among the trees and watched. You’ll never guess who I found there, wandering around talking into branches!” Ruairi grinned, put his fingers to his lips, and motioned for the two of them to look.
The robed Ruairi mounted the stage next to Scathe, turned to the crowd, and said, “Greetings, good people of Yondersaay,” in a voice very unlike Ruairi’s. As he spoke, he slowly brought his arms up into the air. Scathe and his men were mesmerized. Instead of grabbing the boy and restraining him, they stood there watching him address the crowd. Slowly, as his arms were raised, his robes parted, and from under them came two ravens of the shiniest black. The ravens flew out and up into the sky. At the same time, the small, copper-haired boy started to transform. He morphed, his back curved into the form of a wizened, stooped old man, back gnarled and twisted, head bent toward the ground.
The villagers were astounded. Some of them instinctively took steps away from the site of this astonishing metamorphosis. But there was something very familiar about this man now, about the way he carried himself. They were not frightened. The old man straightened and rose to his full height. The ravens fluttered and came to rest, one on either shoulder. The man reached into his robes and slowly, carefully produced the staff that had been hidden there.
Instantly, the villagers knew who he was. They threw themselves onto their knees; they bowed before Odin, father of all Vikings.
“Odin has returned!” Scathe announced, rushing forward to stand beside the man. Quickly, he motioned to his men in the crowd. Scathe approached the old man, took his hand, and shook it heartily. “There is nothing you can do, old man,” Scathe whispered to Odin, and he turned to the crowd and smiled a limp, slithery smile. “I know you are weak, and you know I am strong. I’m going to do away with these people”—Scathe cast a glance back at the three Millers, who were right now wending their way through the crowd—“and if you try to save them, I’ll do away with those people.” Here he motioned toward his henchmen standing, weapons drawn among the oblivious islanders.
“I can tell that you have not regained your powers,” Scathe whispered. “My dear Odin, you must accept defeat. Have your party, bask in the adoration of your subjects, but know that these people”— he nodded toward Granny, Dani, and Ruairi once more—“are finished.”
“It won’t be necessary to kill them,” Odin said.
“Is that a fact?” Scathe said scornfully.
“I will make a deal with you, Mr. Scathe, let me address the crowd, and we’ll talk.”
Scathe nodded, and Odin walked to the edge of the platform and addressed the islanders. “My fellow Vikings, I am delighted to have come home to you on the night of our annual festivities. I shall return forthwith to celebrate with you. Commence your feasting. The night has barely begun! Enjoy it to the fullest.”
The Yondersaanians cheered a welcome and took up their singing, torch-throwing dance, and the festivities continued in earnest.
While they were thus occupied, Odin led Scathe, closely followed by Hamish and four of the five twins, off the platform.
“Isdrab! Asgrim! Apprehend those three! They are coming with us,” Scathe snapped, and Isdrab and Asgrim raced after the scurrying Millers.
“I know what you want, and I am finally prepared to let you have it,” Odin said to Scathe as they walked up the shore.
“You are going to let me become lord and master of all Yondersaay?” Scathe asked skeptically.
“No,” Odin said, and shook his head. “I don’t have the power to do that. There are two ways and two ways alone you can become lord and master of all Yondersaay. You know that. Besides, I don’t believe that’s what you really want.”
“In truth, it is not,” Scathe said, smiling and bowing to any islanders that happened to pass close by.
“I suspect you cannot wait to leave Yondersaay,” Odin said. “All that is stopping you is my treasure.”
“You are very perceptive, old man. I want nothing more than to get off this godforsaken rock. With the treasure, of course,” Scathe said.
“I will take you to the treasure and show you how to retrieve it,” Odin said. Here Scathe stopped and looked him directly in the face, watching for signs of trickery. “I shall show you where it is. In return, you must release your prisoners, all your prisoners, and leave the island, never to return.”
“These three must mean quite a lot to you,” Scathe said, unconvinced.
“They are Yondersaanians, and it is my duty to protect all who are of this island,” Odin said.
“I agree to your trade,” Scathe said just as Isdrab and Asgrim returned with a struggling Dani, Ruairi, and Granny. “The treasure and my departure for the prisoners.”
“All your prisoners,” Odin corrected.
“All right, yes. All my prisoners,” Scathe agreed.
Odin nodded. He turned and led Scathe, the Millers, Hamish, the Turbot cousins, and four of the five twins up the hill and through the center of the village.
At the brow of the hill, the little group turned toward the Crimson Forest. Odin stopped and looked back at the harbor. Ruairi saw a resigned sadness in his eye. And an unmistakable twinkle.
Everyone in the small group paused to follow Odin’s gaze. From that vantage point, they could see that the majestic dragon-headed longship was fully ablaze in the harbor. In the glow of the flames and by the light of the myriad torches in the sands of the shore, the small group could clearly make out the Viking inhabitants of Yondersaay, the enchanted island in the middle of the northern-most seas, having the night of their lives.
Odin took a long, deep breath and turned his back on the view. The group moved away from the top of the hill and followed Odin along the path to Mount Violaceous. He stopped walking when he reached the taut old oak in the hollow of the Crimson Forest. Everyone looked around, wondering why they had stopped. Odin looked up. “Hello, old friend,” Odin said to the tree.
“Welcome back, your godship. I hope you’ll be telling me you won’t be staying away so long ever again,”
“I hope not, Rarelief,” Odin said.
“And hello again, you two,” Rarelief said to Dani and Granny.
“Hello there, Rarelief,” Granny said with a small smile.
“Hi,” Dani said and gave a weak wave.
“I hate to interrupt this touching little reunion,” screeched Scathe. “But the treasure is literally not here! And you will not convince me that it is. I have searched this forest inch by inch a hundred times over. And I have most certainly looked under this tree.”
“The treasure is here, Mr. Scathe,” Odin said. “You were just never permitted to attain it before.”
“Well then, you won’t mind if I have my men dig while we all wait,” Scathe said, suppressing visible rage.
“I’m afraid that will not work,” Odin said. “Whosoever wishes to claim the treasure as his own, whether it was originally his or not, must remove it from the earth himself. In a very particular way.”
The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of Yondersaay Page 22