Finn coughed, swallowed and coughed again. ‘If … if that is your wish, your Majesty—’
‘It is. I can trust you, Finn, and Valgard can make sure the influence of Sigurd and Sven does not confuse the men. Now go – there is much that needs to be done.’
There is indeed, Valgard thought as he walked out. There is indeed.
*
‘What do you want?’ The guard posted outside Sigurd and Sven’s house was big, ugly and determined. Valgard thought he’d probably been put in front of their cabin because he’d be very hard to move out of the way. A large, hand-made crucifix hung on a cord around the big oaf’s neck.
Valgard made the sign of the cross and bowed his head. ‘Glory to God, amen.’ The guard mumbled something indistinct in return. ‘I am here to check on the health of our … guests.’ The guard stared dully at him and did not move a hair’s breadth. ‘Finn said I should look them over.’ Still no movement. ‘If they were to fall ill, King Olav would get very angry.’
The guard inched away from the door.
‘Thank you,’ Valgard said. The guard ignored him and stared straight ahead. The door was reinforced; the bar across it was at least half Valgard’s weight. After struggling with it for a while, Valgard managed to shift the bar just enough to send it crashing to the ground. The guard spared him a contemptuous glance but did not move a finger. Biting back a curse, Valgard sent him a smile instead and opened the door as far as he could.
The inside of the hut was dark and dusty. Sigurd sat with his back against the far wall; Sven was getting to his feet. He had been allowed a pouch of herbs to treat his wounds, but he looked naked without a blade. Valgard stepped towards his foster-father and helped him up. He glanced towards Sigurd; Sven shook his head.
‘I’m trying,’ Valgard muttered under his breath, ‘but there’s no reasoning with the king. He’s out of his mind. Jesus this, Jesus that.’
‘Could you get us some weapons? We’d happily—’
Valgard grabbed the old man’s wrist with strength he didn’t know he had. ‘No,’ he hissed. The look of surprise on Sven’s face was rewarding. ‘You’re not cutting your way out of this. There are five thousand men out there.’
‘We’ve seen worse,’ Sven said.
Valgard released his grip. ‘I know, Father. I’ve heard the stories. But I think patience is the best way forward now. Just … allow things to happen. Give me a couple more days. I’ve talked to the men. They’re behind you. We just need to find the right moment.’ He glanced towards the door and the guard outside it. ‘I’m not supposed to give you this. King Olav wants to control what you eat so he can keep you weak.’ Valgard reached into the folds of his tunic, produced a leather bottle and handed it to Sven. ‘For both of you.’
‘Thank you, son,’ Sven said. His expression was difficult to read.
‘You’re welcome, Father,’ Valgard replied. The breath caught in his throat. ‘I must go – I have things to do. His Majesty doesn’t like to wait.’
Sven glanced towards Sigurd and for the first time since Valgard stepped through the door he saw a twinkle in the old rogue’s eye. ‘Tell me about it,’ he muttered.
Valgard’s smile lasted until he’d turned his back. When he left the hut, the guard was waiting, holding the bar.
*
King Olav sat down in the high chair, then stood up again. Unable to find a comfortable position, he continued walking around the longhouse and touching the silver cross hanging around his neck. ‘How many ships do we have?’
‘Sixty,’ Jorn said. ‘Sixty ready to sail, needing only minimal repairs.’
‘Sixty. How many benches?’
‘Mostly twenty-seaters, up to thirty-six.’
‘And have you decided who we’re taking?’
‘We’ve drawn up a list,’ Jorn said, gesturing to Runar.
‘Very good,’ King Olav said. ‘What of the grain stores?’
Runar consulted a slate of wood with carved notches. ‘W-we have th-thirty sacks of grain left, forty head of s-smoked lamb … Th-they managed to treat what Sigurd had slaughtered and s-save most of it … herbs for soup, sixty sacks of turnip—’
‘Take what you think you’ll need,’ King Olav said. ‘You’ve proved valuable, Runar. I do not doubt that you provide a lot of ideas for Jorn. We start the fitting tomorrow morning. We sail as soon as we can.’
‘Th-thank you, your M-m-mah—’
A dismissive wave of King Olav’s hand stopped Runar in his tracks. ‘That’s enough. Go. Do what you need to. I have things to do.’
Jorn and Runar rose quietly and left the longhouse. When they’d gone, King Olav walked over to the makeshift altar and knelt.
‘Father,’ he muttered, ‘Father, tell me that this is right. I will risk the deaths of hundreds of my men, Norse warriors who have learned to love you and Jesus Christ. Give me some sign that you value your servant.’
A stillness filled the longhouse. Outside, the autumn light faded as afternoon turned to evening. The door to the longhouse opened slowly and Finn entered with Valgard close behind. After a short while, the big warrior cleared his throat.
King Olav rose without a word. He moved to the dais and motioned for them to approach.
‘I’m glad you are here, Finn. We need to talk about your reign as chieftain of Stenvik.’ He smiled. ‘No need to look so worried, my friend. It will all work very well. Valgard will counsel you and make sure you don’t step on any toes.’
Valgard cleared his throat. ‘If I may, your Majesty. There is one thing I must mention to you. It is very important. I think that you should be careful—’
One of King Olav’s guards burst in. ‘My King! My King!’
‘You will salute!’ Finn shouted. ‘What do you want?’
‘It’s … it’s Sven and Sigurd! The guard just told me to come and fetch you!’
‘What?’ the king snapped.
‘They’re not breathing!’
NEAR BYGLAND, WEST NORWAY OCTOBER, AD 996
The morning sunlight filtered through the yellowing canopy. Leaves crisp with night-frost crunched under Audun’s feet. He had no idea what this wood was called – it was somewhere south, towards the sea. That was enough.
He needed to get away: away from this country, away from people, away from anyone who knew what happened in Stenvik.
Anywhere would do.
The hill was steep but not impossible to climb. He picked his way over broken branches, minding his step around treacherous mossy stones. The forest was slower going, but it was better than the roads. He hadn’t yet seen any of King Olav’s men and wanted it to stay that way.
He thought of Stenvik again.
The hot, metallic air in the forge.
The sounds of weapons clashing, men screaming, skulls crushing.
The stench of the blood.
Audun slapped his arm, hard.
‘Stop,’ he croaked. His throat hurt with the strange effort of speaking. He swallowed and tried again. ‘Stop it,’ he tried.
Better.
Audun hadn’t said anything in a while. Nothing to say, anyway, and no one to say it to. Ulfar had walked off east; he’d decided not to follow – maybe it had been the right thing to do, maybe not. He spat and cleared his throat. ‘So where should I go, then?’ he asked the trees. ‘South?’ Nobody answered. ‘Why not.’ There was something in his voice that sounded strange. An edge. ‘Only greybeards and halfwits speak to themselves anyway,’ he snarled as he crested the hill.
On the way down, his feet slipped and he had to grab a branch to steady himself. He regained his balance, stopped for a moment to catch his breath and scratched at his chest through the hole in the tunic. ‘Oh, for f—’ Audun jerked his hand away as if he’d touched fire. Since Stenvik … since a couple of days after Stenvik, when he’d recovered fully, he’d tried to stop scratching the spot where—
No. He pushed the memory away.
The ground sloped sharply ahead of him and he c
ould see over the tops of the trees. The forest thinned out at the foot of the hill and gentle waves of farmland stretched as far as he could see. A reedy road meandered over the nearest rise. Far in the distance he thought he could see a thin blue line – the sea.
‘South will do,’ he muttered.
A twig snapped above and behind him. Much too close.
Audun whirled around.
There were four of them. Somehow they’d sneaked up onto the crest behind him without making any noise. They looked just like he did, filthy, ragged and hungry. The tallest one, all skin and bones and dirty hair, stepped in front of the group and leaned on a long walking stick.
‘Give us your food,’ he snapped at Audun. Two of his companions started moving off to either side. ‘And your shoes. And everything else you’ve got. Then we’ll let you live.’
‘Please,’ Audun said. ‘I don’t want trouble. I have nothing to give, and it won’t be much of a life if you leave me naked in the woods.’ The slope behind him was a tempting option, but turning his back on these men felt like a bad idea.
‘Farms round here,’ said the tall man, trying to sound reasonable. ‘Or you might find someone stupid enough to be walking through the forest alone. Everyone’s got to hunt these days.’
Audun looked at the tall man. Stained, pointy teeth. Clumps of dried blood in his beard. Where were the others? The blacksmith’s head spun. ‘I don’t think I will. Thank you,’ he mumbled. ‘Now go away. Please don’t start—’
A tree branch thick as a man’s forearm thwacked across his shoulders. He stumbled, nearly lost his footing and grabbed hold of a branch for support. Instinct kicked in and he shifted his weight to the left; another attacker stumbled past.
The tall man strode forward with murder in his eyes. ‘Grab him!’ he snarled.
Pain exploded in Audun’s lower back.
He twisted around to see a wild-eyed man wielding a fallen branch and getting ready to strike again. Backpedalling, Audun slipped and fell. Something hard smashed into his hip and set his leg throbbing. He fumbled around for purchase, dodged a vicious strike from the makeshift club and caught his hand on something sharp.
Fist-sized rock. Jagged edge.
Without thinking, he flexed and hurled it at the next moving target.
There was a dull crunch as the club-wielder’s head changed shape. He dropped to the ground. His friends screamed in rage but the noise was almost distant to Audun. The rich, iron-tinged smell of spurting blood stroked him, lured him, called to him.
‘Oh no …’ he muttered.
A feral grin spread on the blond man’s face as he rose to his feet.
An attacker charged him, armed with a rock of his own. He swung hard overhead and screamed in pain as his wrist was smashed by a blocking forearm. His cries were cut short when a straight right from the stocky blacksmith drove the man’s nose up into his brain.
The tall, gaunt leader approached with caution. He had a stick with a point. The lunge was sudden and surprisingly fast. The blacksmith saw the wood pierce his side, felt it rip into his flesh and didn’t care. Wood wasn’t metal.
Horrified, the tall man glanced past him a moment too soon.
The blond man grabbed the spear, held on to it and stepped backwards into the path of the third attacker. A hard elbow broke the scrawny sneak’s sternum, crushed his ribcage and sent him coughing and wheezing to the forest floor with blood bubbling out of his mouth. Fear blossomed on the tall man’s face as he scrabbled to get away, but his feet betrayed him on the slippery surface. As he fell to the ground, an iron grip seized him by the back of the neck. Another grabbed his crotch, squeezed mercilessly and lifted the tall, gaunt and screaming man off the ground, grunting with the effort.
The blacksmith threw the scrawny man down the hill, watched him flailing and screaming as he flew until he bounced off a tree, watched the lifeless body fall and crash into the ground, roll down through the undergrowth and come to a stop at the foot of the hill.
He looked around, but nothing moved. Slowly, almost gently, the thrumming in his temples slowed and the pain returned. Audun’s right leg spasmed and collapsed underneath him, sending him to the forest floor. The wooden spear throbbed in his side. The suffocating feeling of bile exploding from his stomach threatened to overwhelm him until he managed to roll over and vomit.
After the first convulsion, Audun reached for the long spear, pulled it out, screamed and lost consciousness.
*
When he woke, he was wet and cold. His mouth tasted sour and his head throbbed. For the first couple of moments, old dreams confused him. The shivers and the stab of pain from his side cleared his head soon enough, though.
The hill.
The fight.
Audun looked around. The promise of rain still hung in the air. As he moved, an opportunistic fox scampered away from a corpse with a broken skull. He staggered to his feet, shook himself and immediately regretted the decision as lightning flashes of pain erupted in his back. He had to fight for his balance, breathing in shallow gasps.
He coughed, choked and spat. The taste of bile reminded him of other times, other fights. For a brief, tantalising moment, he could remember what he had dreamed about, where he’d just been, but then it was gone.
Biting back the waves of nausea, he started moving again. One step. Then another. He did his best to ignore the three dead men as he picked his way carefully down the slope of the hill. The rain had made the ground even worse for walking. He stumbled, almost lost his balance and had to grab hold of a tree for support. After taking a moment to catch his breath, bite down hard and try his best to ignore the lancing pain in his hip and back, he set out again.
His leg gave way completely and everything tilted. Waves of heat washed over his back as he crashed to the ground, sliding, moving, rolling. Trees whipped by his head, the horizon pitched and lurched, suddenly he was staring up at the sky, then he was turned around again. His shin smashed into a tree stump; he flailed and grabbed for a bush, a root, anything to slow his fall. When he finally rammed into a big fir tree the breath was knocked out of him and he rolled over, gasping for air. Around him, the red, gold and yellow of the dying forest blurred into the colours of the forge. Tiny stars burst across the blue sky. In a panic, Audun started punching his chest – harder and harder. He could feel the veins in his throat bulging, his face heating up.
Something gave way inside him and sweet, cold life flooded his lungs. He coughed painfully as he tried to swallow all the air in the world. When his heart had stopped thundering, he clambered to his feet. His back screamed at him and he broke out in a cold sweat, but he remained standing.
Then he noticed the tall man, lying like a child’s broken toy in the clearing. The side of his head was one open wound.
‘I told you to go away,’ Audun mumbled. ‘I told you.’
He stumbled off, away from death and blood, heading south.
*
The going was slow.
He’d found a branch that served as a crooked walking staff of sorts but his leg was still giving him a hard time, his back seized up and his throat felt like it had been scraped raw. He coughed and permitted himself a cold smile.
Things had worked out fucking great, hadn’t they?
He should never have got involved. And he never should have followed Ulfar off that wall.
The sun was sliding down beyond the horizon. Soon it would be dark. Winter would come. Audun scanned the horizon and found nothing – no shelter, no hills with good caves, nothing. Just acres and acres of fields.
He did not like the idea of sleeping outside again, exposed to everything and anyone, not in this state. Swallowing hard, he turned and walked towards the road he’d seen from the hill.
It was overgrown and underused. Audun shivered and stumbled onwards, gritting his teeth and ignoring his back, legs and aching shoulders. The road led him up onto the small rise. The farmer had not yet done his harvesting, and from the looks of it he
’d be too late. Beyond the field, the farmstead appeared about ready to collapse. The road led in a curve alongside the cornfield and into a yard. He could see a ramshackle shed of some sort, a main building and possibly something behind that, but none of it looked very good. The wood was grey with age. About five hundred yards behind it, the forest rose like a green-capped wall.
A sharp wind bit at Audun’s back and he felt suddenly sick: sick of it all, the wandering, the fighting, the loneliness. He hunched his shoulders, winced and set off towards the house, tightening his grip on his makeshift quarterstaff. Just in case.
The door to the main house opened when he was about four hundred yards away. He flinched, but kept going. An old man walked out; Audun’s heart beat faster when he saw the soft glow of a hearth inside the house.
‘Well met, stranger!’ the man shouted. His hair was white but his voice was strong.
‘Well—’ The rest of the greeting was lost in a fit of coughing as his back locked up, his leg buckled and he had to clutch the staff to avoid falling over.
The farmer stood and watched him from his steps.
‘Well met,’ Audun croaked at last.
‘Where are you headed?’ the man said.
‘South,’ Audun replied. ‘I seek shelter for the night.’
‘I suppose you do,’ the old man said. ‘I have little, but what’s mine is yours.’ As Audun approached, the man added, ‘It looks like you might need it. Are you badly hurt?’
‘No,’ Audun lied. ‘A fire and some broth should set me right.’
‘We can see to that,’ the man said.
The house had not looked like much from afar, but it turned out to be well maintained. To Audun’s travel-weary eyes it was a palace. Three beds fitted snugly into the corners, two of them unused. Chisels and wood-carving knives were scattered across a small table by the only window, which faced towards the fields. Underneath the chair next to the table, a woven basket stored sticks of various sizes. A small fire gave warmth to the whole room; a bubbling pot sent off smells that made his stomach growl.
The Valhalla Saga Page 33