The Valhalla Saga

by Snorri Kristjansson

  *

  Alone on a long, winding road heading south along Setr Valley, Audun tried his best not to let his mind wander. The sky above him was clear and blue, with only the occasional wisp of a cloud spread across it. After putting on Fjolnir’s old clothes he looked more like a migrant worker and less like a roving wild man, but he still dreaded meeting the next traveller. So he walked.

  Left, right, left, right.

  Why had he not been able to charge into the fray and save Fjolnir from the beating?

  Left, right, left, right.

  Had he … died on the wall?

  Left, right, left.

  What was that thing he could feel? The blackness in his chest?

  Right, left.

  His heart beat faster. Filled with an urge, a longing to move, Audun started running, away from the farm, away from the shame, away from the questions in his mind.

  *

  The sun was past half-set and darkness crept across the fields in its wake. The shadows had lengthened around him as he ran, and he was already winded and sore when he saw the fire. It was still just a dot but it was clearly on his path. Breathing hard, Audun realised he could see white vapour coming from his nose and mouth.

  It would not be a good night for sleeping rough.

  His feet hurt from the running, as did his legs and back. He’d really given himself to it, enjoyed the raw feeling of cold air scraping his lungs, the soft ache in his legs. When he found his stride he’d decided that he was not allowed to stop; then he had started counting things as he went, anything to keep from thinking about everything. Slowing down now, Audun tried to gather his swirling, scattered thoughts. He waited for them to sweep him away, but they didn’t. Instead they were just … there, like a fire in a forge: a fire that could be stoked and controlled. Without thinking, his fingers brushed the girdle of his belt. It felt slightly warm to the touch. He pushed the thoughts away and tried to remember how to speak to people.

  It was almost dusk when he neared the camp. There was a handful of travellers, men and women. He took this for a good sign and approached, making sure to show himself.

  ‘Well met!’ he shouted. His voice felt rusty.

  Two of the men rose from the crackling fire and peered out into the darkness. ‘Well met, stranger,’ the shorter one said.

  ‘I seek shelter and a bit of warmth from your fire,’ Audun said. ‘It’s getting cold out there,’ he added lamely.

  ‘Step closer and give us a look at you,’ the shorter one said. Moving into the outer circle of flickering firelight, he showed his empty palms to the two men.

  A brief glance passed between them, and then the shorter one nodded. ‘Enjoy our fire, stranger. Do you have a name?’

  ‘Audun … Fjolnisson,’

  ‘Well met, Audun, son of Fjolnir. I am Breki and this is my brother, Bjorn.’

  ‘Well met, brothers,’ Audun said. He could feel the soft touch of the fire on his skin as he came closer.

  ‘Bjorn will sit the first watch. You’ll sit with him and make sure the fire does not go out.’

  Audun nodded. Twelve men and women sat around the fire; some acknowledged him with a look, others muttered a greeting, yet others did not seem to care. At the far edge of the light he could see four horses grazing and behind them he could just make out the shape of two carts.

  ‘Where are you headed?’ he asked Bjorn, who turned out to be younger than Audun had thought.

  The tall man stroked his chin, plucking at his poor excuse for a beard. ‘South, I reckon. You?’

  ‘Same.’

  The camp lapsed into silence. Breki, older than Bjorn by a good ten years, looked at Audun, then handed him a bite of meat. Audun accepted, wincing in the dark. It felt like a while since he’d last paid his way in the world.

  Slowly but surely, the other campers fell asleep. Bjorn caught Audun’s eye and conveyed with hand gestures that he’d be doing the rounds. His lanky frame became almost invisible once he’d moved from his place near the fire. Audun’s thoughts went unbidden to the start of the journey. Where would Ulfar be now? Doing better than him, that was pretty certain. He wondered whether he’d see the mouthy Swede again. A soft whinny brought him back to the fireside. Bjorn’s outline was just visible as a black form against the dark purple sky and its dusting of white dots. The young man was stroking one of the horses and murmuring in its ear.

  Audun moved his legs and winced. They’d need stretching. As he rose, the horse’s head snapped to attention. It snorted and took two steps backwards.

  A sharp, toothy howl cut across the night sky. The horses snorted and stamped. Swearing, Bjorn grabbed the reins of three but the fourth reared and neighed loudly and took off – but Audun was there in a couple of steps. He grabbed the rough reins and held tight, but the wide-eyed horse was terrified. It reared, bucked and pulled back – and nothing happened. It was hard to tell who was more surprised, Audun or the horse. He’d braced himself for a struggle to subdue the beast like he’d seen tamers do several times, wearing out panic-stricken horses by hanging on to the reins as if their lives depended on it. This time the tugging of the strong draft horse was no stronger than that of a kitten. Underneath his tunic, Audun could feel the heat emanating from his belt buckle. The horse reared again, but with less conviction. After a couple more tries it gave up and resigned itself to its fate. Meanwhile, Bjorn had steadied the others and was muttering to them gently to calm them, flitting between them like a shadow.

  Audun led his runaway over to Bjorn. ‘Sounded like a wolf, that did,’ he muttered to Bjorn.

  ‘Yeah, though ’tis a bit far south if you ask me,’ he replied.

  ‘They have to eat, too, I suppose. Maybe the winter is lean up north.’

  ‘Well,’ Bjorn said, ‘we’ll see if they can chase us across the strait.’

  Overhead a thin green line curved across the sky and grew into a river of light flowing silently across the vast black expanse.

  Audun and Bjorn stayed with the horses, waiting for a second howl that never came. Whatever it had been was gone, hunting elsewhere.

  *

  The road under their feet changed from well-travelled highway to trodden path and back as it snaked across fields and over hills. Audun walked at the rear of their modest caravan, beside one of the carts. In front of him, Bjorn shuffled alongside the other cart with the economy of a born traveller. Occasionally they passed under the wooden kings of autumn with their golden crowns and torches frozen in mid-flame. Mostly, though, they walked,face forward, one foot in front of the other, existing in a constant state of slow movement. Bjorn and Breki proved pleasant enough but the rest of the party kept communication down to grunts and nods. From the glances they shot him, Audun could tell that the decision to invite him along might not have been approved by everyone.

  He couldn’t care less.

  After the first night, he woke up feeling ill, but he’d ignored it and volunteered to look after the horses. In the past he’d taken the animals for granted; they were just there, they served a purpose and someone else made sure they didn’t die. He’d shoed a few, but never gone out of his way after that kind of trade.

  Now they were his best bet for silent company.

  It was also quite reassuring to watch someone who knew what he was doing, and Audun found himself trailing Bjorn, observing him work around the animals. During the first couple of days, he had started learning the order in which to groom them, when to brush or dust them down, how hard to apply the comb, how to pitch his voice when they were skittish. It was something to do, and it kept him from thinking too much.

  The cart ahead of him slowed. ‘Look there,’ Bjorn said.

  ‘What?’ Audun said.

  ‘The Otra.’

  Audun pulled gently on the reins and the horses stopped. He walked past them and to Bjorn’s side. ‘What do you—? Oh.’

  They stood on a small rise. Below them, the road wound down to a ferryman’s shack next to a small pier. Th
e river itself was at least sixty yards wide. The other bank was a good six feet above water level, with a forbidding wall of pine trees all the way to the edge of the water.

  Audun whistled softly.

  ‘Yep,’ Bjorn replied. ‘Can you swim?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Audun said. ‘Didn’t know I’d need to.’

  ‘You might not, but it means I can stand you next to the edge, if need be.’

  ‘The edge of what?’

  A big, ungainly raft bobbled into view around the river bend, apparently floating upstream. Four bargemen stood on it, one in each corner, poling the craft towards the pier.

  ‘The edge of that,’ Bjorn replied. ‘That’s our passage down to the Sands. You’re going to learn a lot more about tending horses real fast, Fjolnisson,’ the tall man added. Audun wasn’t sure, but it almost looked like he was amused.

  *

  ‘I’m never, ever going on one of these again,’ Audun muttered.

  ‘What’s the matter, big man?’ Breki said, slapping him on the back and grinning. Audun scowled but he did not notice. Bjorn’s older brother did not appear to worry overly about other people. ‘No stomach for the waves?’

  ‘You can say that,’ Audun replied, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Too much movement.’ The river churned beneath them.

  ‘That’s what your mother told me!’ Breki said. He laughed heartily at his own joke. Audun saw another couple of smirking faces. ‘Whoa!’

  The barge heaved under them. It was only just big enough to fit the two carts side by side. The rest of the party had squeezed in behind them at the back. The bargeman and his three flat-faced, thick-necked cousins had posted themselves one on each corner and were barking orders to each other in some kind of strange river language; only the occasional word was intelligible. Audun glanced at the one closest to him. The man stood braced against the two raised edges with his white-knuckled hands around a big, thick bargepole. The four men guided the vessel downstream with a carefully choreographed series of pushes – Audun suspected they knew the precise location of every sandbank and mud hole in the whole river.

  ‘How much longer?’ he shouted to Bjorn.

  ‘We’ll be there before nightfall,’ the tall man called over the backs of the horses.

  ‘Left!’ the thick-neck next to him shouted, his eyes suddenly going wide. ‘Rocks! Left!’

  Apparently they didn’t.

  Time turned into dripping candle wax as the barge began to rotate, slowly at first, under the power of its own momentum. Panicked shouts from the other corners blended into the growing roar of the river. The bargeman next to Audun strained against his pole, tugged and shoved, but something had caught it at the bottom and it didn’t budge. The veins on the man’s wrists bulged and Audun watched him roar as he pulled for all he was worth, but it was all for nothing – he was slowly being lifted up into the air as the barge shifted under him.

  As if in a dream, Audun reached for the pole.

  His hands closed on the rough wood.

  He pulled.

  Every thread of every muscle in his body leapt to life and filled him to brimming with power, so much power, so much strength. He could feel the life in the wood, the pummelling force of the water, he could feel where the point was jammed between the rocks. Heat spread from his steel-woven belt buckle.

  The wood creaked in his hands.

  Something heavy shifted at the bottom of the river and the pole came loose.

  The bargeman stumbled back down to the deck, found his feet and shouted a quick series of commands to the other corners.

  A wave of nausea washed over Audun. Cramps stabbed his gut and he vomited over the edge, spitting bile.

  ‘Oho! We’ll have a ways to go with him yet before he’s a proper traveller!’ Breki shouted. ‘Come on, Audun! It’s just like being with a woman! Or in your case – good training for the first time!’ The panic on the barge dissolved into laughter.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Breki,’ Bjorn said. ‘Audun – are you ill?’

  With supreme effort, Audun straightened up. ‘I’m fine,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘Just don’t like this river much.’ His insides felt as if they were being squeezed out through his throat and a hot ache coursed along his spine, setting his teeth on edge. The buckle was hot against his skin.

  ‘It gets better,’ Bjorn said. ‘We’re nearly around the worst of it.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Audun said. The packhorse leaned over, nudged his chest with its head and snorted gently. He reached out and patted the animal’s neck. ‘Easy,’ he mumbled. ‘Easy.’ The horse repeated the gesture, and as the raft glided onwards, Audun wasn’t sure who was comforting whom.

  THE SANDS, SOUTH NORWAY LATE OCTOBER, AD 996

  The Sands were not a patch on Stenvik, Audun thought.

  After the rapids, the river had slunk through a forest, under intimidating cliffs and at last opened up into a narrow mouth that eventually became a bay. The light was fading as they arrived and torches flared on poles above a smattering of large houses, but there was no longhouse to be seen and no town walls.

  Behind that was the sea. After the trees and the cliffs, the immensity of the sky and the width of the horizon briefly took his breath away. The deep hiss of waves had crept into the background; it was always present, like a pulse.

  When they got closer, he spotted a low pier. A short, fat man stood there waiting for them, hands on hips. ‘Well met!’ he shouted.

  The leader of the bargemen exchanged quick words with Breki, who was not very happy when he turned away. ‘Well met!’ he called back. ‘Coming in for the night. Seeking shelter.’

  ‘You and everyone else, friend,’ the fat man replied cheerfully as the bargemen steered them towards him. As the vessel docked, the fat man shifted so that he was sure to be awkwardly in the way. ‘And it does appear that folk out there have discovered that it’s mighty hard to shelter behind a coin.’

  Audun saw Bjorn reach out and lay a hand on his brother’s forearm. The words died on Breki’s tongue and were replaced with a forced smile. ‘Wise words from a good man. Wise words. So what say you we trade? A couple of our coins for a little of your shelter?’

  The fat man smiled and stepped out of the way. An elbow from Bjorn jostled Audun back into action, and he whispered soothing words to his horses as the first cart rumbled ashore.

  *

  It happened on the third night.

  They’d set down at the Sands, camped by their wagons and spent two days eating, drinking and dicing with the locals. Audun had earned a couple of silvers mending carts, but there was nowhere near enough trade for him to set up shop, even if he’d wanted to. He looked west, towards the retreating sun, and envied it. At least the sun got to leave this dump once a day.

  Breki, Bjorn and a couple of their travelling companions had started a fire. A handful of locals drifted along; Audun just sat and listened. There was campfire chatter about King Olav – apparently trouble was brewing. Someone said he’d sailed north with six thousand men; someone else said that’d be suicide this late in autumn. Some of the Sands men had met a caravan further up the valley that was headed for Stenvik with supplies and men, both of which were apparently in short supply. The consensus was that the king was probably mad as a hovel of foxes, but none of the present company volunteered to go and tell him.

  Near midnight, a bull-necked sailor turned to Breki, who was in the middle of a story about a milkmaid and three farmhands that was not headed anywhere nice. ‘Oi, big mouth. Why are you still here?’ he asked. Audun took one look at the man and felt a familiar tingle at the back of his neck.

  ‘Waiting on a ship,’ Breki said.

  ‘You’ll be waiting a while, then,’ said the sailor. ‘The strait is chock full of sea-wolves. We’ve had one in the last four due come in, and them badly wounded. Looks like you’re going to be stuck here losing your money at dice,’ he crowed and showed a gap-toothed grin.

  ‘And why the f
uck would anyone want to sit outside or inside a shithole like this?’ Breki snapped.

  And that was that.

  The sailor shoved Breki hard and dived after him as he hit the ground. Two of his friends jumped up and ran across the fire to help. A moment slow to realise what was going on, Bjorn was almost up on his feet when Audun pulled him down and shook his head. ‘If you go in there they’ll smack you as well,’ he said.

  The fury in Bjorn’s eyes was worse than a slap. ‘He’s my brother,’ the tall man hissed. With that he was up and gone, wading into the darkness and the pile of bodies.

  Blinded by the sparks, it took Audun a couple of breaths to come to his senses.

  ‘Fenrir take your bones,’ he snarled. ‘All of you.’ He rose and strode into the fray.

  *

  Bjorn did not speak to him for two days. Breki’s jaw was bruised and both his eyes were swollen; he still managed to glare. The townsfolk gave them all a wide berth.

  Audun sighed. He really didn’t have a knack with people.

  He’d tended the horses; there was nothing else to do. He couldn’t walk any further south without getting wet fast. The ocean seemed to surround him, fill out his field of vision, mock him with its serene infinity. All straight lines …

  And one sail.

  A ship was heading for the Sands.

  Without thinking, Audun hurried towards the makeshift harbour. When he approached, he saw that others had indeed noticed. A group of hard sailors had taken up positions to meet the newcomers. Some held clubs, some leaned on spears, some wore swords or axes in their belts.

  It felt as if the ship was taking for ever to get there. Around Audun, hands tightened on weapon grips.

  The fat man who had met them at the pier elbowed his way to the front. ‘Who goes there?’ he bellowed.

  ‘Oh, shut up, Ivar,’ someone shouted from the stern. ‘And tell your boys to calm down.’

  Ivar turned around with a big smile on his face. ‘It’s all fine. It’s Hrutur.’

  A ripple of relief spread through the assembled men. Loud, nervous chatter replaced muttered curses and some of them called out well-meaning insults to the approaching captain. Shouted commands guided the ship into the dock. She was a stout knarr with five cross-benches for rowers. Audun noted that not all of them were manned.