A chill settled in the base of her spine and shook her gently from the centre and out. It was a raw cold, flavoured with the scent of pine trees and bark and earth covered in rotting mulch. She felt the familiar tingle, the metallic taste on the back of her tongue that spoke of sparks and shifts in the world.
When she saw the tree the breath caught in her throat and escaped with a low hiss. She looped Streak’s reins around a branch, muttered a half-hearted command and walked towards the thing, half-entranced.
The trunk had been stripped of bark and twisted, pulled down, branches warped and twined around it in unnatural curves that made the eyes hurt. From a distance it looked charred but when she drew closer she saw that the surface of the tree was smooth, like raven-stone. Helga’s head pounded with the wrenching wrongness of it and she staggered away, staring down at her feet to avoid looking at the black thing that stood out in its curves among ramrod-straight pines – but the ground felt wrong as well. The bile rose in her throat as she realised what she was looking at and she forced her head up to confirm it.
A circle around the black tree, maybe ten yards wide, was dead. Wizened roots from other trees poked up through the undergrowth, and the ground looked like some kind of ash. Her eye was drawn to the black trunk then, following it up through curves and bends that felt so alien and horrible. The familiarity of them hit her like a rock and she started muttering, ‘No. No, no, no.’ She’d seen them; of course she’d seen them – but they had just been too big, too wrong. Impossible. Her hands started knotting and fidgeting of their own accord, making the signs and un-making them, trying to make it go away like a child with a bad dream.
Streak neighed loudly, and Helga snapped out of her trance. Anger flooded her and she clenched her fists so hard she could feel the nails digging into her palms. The pain was enough to get her moving towards her horse. Unlooping the reins in one movement, she turned her back on the black thing in the forest, then led Streak away.
With every step away, the wrench in her chest loosened and the anger subsided until suddenly the tears flowed. ‘Oh come on, woman!’ she growled, gritting her teeth and trying her best to swallow some spit. ‘Bawling like a baby? Stop it!’ The reins suddenly went slack and Streak’s head was by her side. The smell of warm horse washed over her and ever so gently, the massive head came in for a soft nudge. A smile broke out on Helga’s face and she reached up to stroke the horse’s jaw. ‘Don’t you go soft on me too, you old nag,’ she said, ‘because if you buckle too, we’ll just be two old girls in the middle of nowhere. And if this is true, we’ve got work to do.’
Even when they’d ridden for a good while she could still feel it pulsing behind her, a dark lover’s heart: a tree twisted into runes that spelled out ‘winter’ and ‘eternal’ and ‘war’.
Ragnarok.
*
Helga wasn’t afraid of the night. She’d seen too much, and on more than one occasion the shadows had saved her life. However, there was something about the campfire that gave her a feeling of unease. In times like these, anyone who lit a fire that big clearly did not have a care in the world. No effort had been made to cover it up – it could be seen from hundreds of yards away, the light bouncing off tree trunks and throwing shadows around. She was still quite a way off, too far off to be illuminated, and Streak, well attuned to her moods and by all accounts a very smart horse, knew to be as quiet as possible.
A faint smell of roasting meat drifted her way and made her stomach rumble. Placing every step with care, she inched forward. If what the rune had told was true, she would need information, and she’d get that from travellers. As an afterthought, Helga stopped and rooted around in the mulch. Moments later she found what she needed. A few flicks of the rune-knife carved what she wanted and the wood chip disappeared into folds in her dress, along with the knife.
Something shifted, off to her side, and as Helga froze, Streak halted beside her. Another rustle, then a squawk – and a startled woodpigeon flapped up to a branch as a shadowy, four-legged creature slinked away. Helga exhaled slowly and sniffed the air. Burned twigs, pine resin . . . earth . . . none of the wrongness of the big rune. That was a good sign. She’d got this far north, which meant whatever the gods were up to had moved slower than she’d feared. This could only—
The blade touched her throat gently, and only after that did she feel the warmth of the man behind her.
‘Nice and slow,’ he said. ‘Move and I cut your throat.’
Beside her, Streak whinnied in surprise as another man stepped up to her side and started muttering soothing sounds.
Fat lot of good you did, Helga thought bitterly.
‘How many of you are there?’ the man behind her asked calmly, without raising his voice. She noted that his arm did not waver.
‘Just me,’ Helga said, fighting to keep her voice level. ‘Travelling north. Saw the fire. The nights get cold.’
‘Down here? Pfft.’ There was genuine mirth in the voice. ‘You lot need to eat more seal fat.’ There was a gentle tug on the reins and Streak was led away towards the fire. Helga could only just make out a pair of legs beside the horse, but the man clearly knew what he was doing. ‘Move,’ the man behind her said, pushing gently at her back.
With the body of the man behind her and his strong arm in front, she curtailed all impulses and allowed herself to glide forward. She’d need to see what this was before she could make a decision. When she got closer, she started catching reflections of the fire in small, sparkling diamonds: sentries in the shadows, almost inseparable from the forms of the trees, still as the grave, and all of them watching her.
The smell of the burning wood was more intense now, and the light spread around her field of vision. She turned her head to find Streak and caught a glimpse of her, led to a tree and tied up there. Her captor stayed with the horse, brushing her down. A good sign.
The nudge in her back was firm. ‘Forward,’ the man said.
The camp, if you could call it that, was a loose collection of men. It had a relaxed air of competence, and Helga recognised the spirit of a fighting company. These men had seen a lot, and seen it together. She saw young men sitting alongside more weather-beaten soldiers, but all of them were the same: hardened.
A youth stepped in front of them. Wiry, and tall for his age, which could not be much more than twelve summers, he moved with barely suppressed energy. A nasty, thick scar followed his jaw-line from his ear to his Adam’s apple, and glittering black eyes sparkled in the firelight. ‘What’s this, Ygval?’ he said to the man behind her.
On instinct, Helga looked straight at him. ‘I am Helga Finnsdottir of Ovregard,’ she said, ‘and I’m a woman. If you work on your manners, maybe you’ll get to meet one.’ She could hear a quickly suppressed laugh behind her, and feel the attention of the closest men.
This would either save her life, or go very, very wrong indeed.
The boy looked her up and down. ‘Nice try, grandmother, but I like them only up to twice my age.’ This brought a chorus of guffaws and catcalls from the men.
‘What’s that – eighteen summers?’ Helga asked.
More men drifted towards the exchange. Good, Helga thought. That would bring—
‘Ognvald!’ The gruff, deep voice was like a kick in the spine.
The boy winked at Helga and took two steps back. Helga followed the glances of the men, looking to the shadow of an old pine, where something moved. A large man rose, slowly, and stepped into the light. At least half a head taller than the next man, he stretched languidly and rolled his shoulders. ‘What’s the noise for?’
‘Ygval’s found a stray cat,’ the boy said.
The man emerged from the shadows and Helga felt her heart sink. Black hair braided in a thick plait and a bushy beard twined in warrior’s grips framed a hard face. His eyes squinted into the light. There was no give in this man, Helga thought – no angle
, no finesse, just brute power and will.
He turned and looked over his shoulder. ‘Visitors,’ he said.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake. The one time you useless beard-braiding goat-fuckers don’t gut someone on sight is the one time I’m trying to get some sleep,’ a woman’s voice said from the darkness. ‘Kill her and be done with it.’
The big man frowned at this. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘She’s out here, on her own. I want to hear what she has to say first.’
Helga looked around her at the circle that had formed: the camp was now interested. She drew a deep breath, turned and looked straight at the big man.
‘I am travelling northwards,’ she said. The boy had sidled up next to him, and there could be no mistaking father and son. Two thick scars adorned the big man’s throat, but they looked more like markings than battle wounds. Half-remembered stories of some very bad men rose to the surface of her mind, then sank again. This was not going as well as she’d hoped. Helga’s heart hammered in her chest, but she would not show it: not now, not to them. She reached for old memories of worse situations and found very few, but still – she’d survived those too.
‘Why do you travel alone?’ the big man said. ‘There’s foul things about. Most of them in this camp.’ This brought wolfish grins from the men around the fire.
‘I have to get to the North,’ she said. Suddenly nothing seemed real. She felt a drop of sweat slide down her spine.
‘You with the king?’ There was a hard edge to the big man’s voice.
‘No,’ Helga snapped. ‘And there’s worse things than King Olav Tryggvason.’
The mood in the camp changed then.
‘Right then. I’ll kill her myself if you don’t stop your fucking rumbling.’ A woman emerged from behind the big man, not much more than half his height. Her short cropped hair made her look like a bottle of lightning. She turned her eyes on Helga. ‘Right, sister. I’ll give you’ – she counted thoughtfully on her fingers – ‘three words before I spill your guts and drag you into the woods for the ravens so I’ – she turned and glared at the big man, who suddenly looked less than comfortable – ‘can get some sleep.’
She looked back at Helga and showed her teeth in what was probably supposed to be a smile. ‘If I don’t get my sleep I tend to lose my temper.’ She gestured to the men. ‘They’ve seen it happen. That’s why they’ve all taken a couple of steps back. Now. Your last three words. Go.’
‘Loki walks,’ Helga blurted out. The sting was so sharp that it reached her before the sound of the slap did. An uncomfortable warmth spread from her cheek, and the left side of her face throbbed. She reached up and touched the sore spot gingerly. Three drops of blood came away on her fingers.
The woman before her stepped back. ‘You want to watch your mouth,’ she snarled. There was no trace of mirth in the circle of men now. Helga felt more than saw them tense and slip into their fighters’ minds, but the woman before her kept her hands free of the daggers in her belt. For now.
‘The North,’ Helga continued, tugging nervously at the folds of her dress, forcing herself to look at the woman. ‘Loki is on the move, stirring up the beasts of the underworld, seeking to raise armies and get as many people killed as possible. Nowhere is safe.’
The woman turned to the big man. ‘See? You should have gutted her. She’s wrong in the head.’
‘If she is, then what were those men searching for, up Egill’s way?’ the big man rumbled.
‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’ The woman turned to Helga again and sneered, ‘They’re dead now. Maybe I just don’t like her. That’s been reason enough a couple of times.’ Her hand went to the hilt of a dagger.
Helga threw her arms up in the air. ‘Fine! Condemn all of the North to death, why don’t you? It looks like it would save you time, you b—’
Loud shouts of warning drowned her out.
‘THE FIRE—!’
‘BLADES – NOW!’
The fire was burning faster now, and brighter, hot enough to pull at the skin. The men next to it dived out of the way and underneath the flames, in the hollow space that was just heat and smoke, something stirred.
‘Back up,’ the big man bellowed. ‘Ognvald, fetch my axe.’
All around Helga, blades were being drawn – hardened spears, axes and swords – the men moving as a unit, forming lines and staying well away from the fire.
The flames danced faster and faster, spinning around each other, sucking the golden air into shapes as the logs underneath crackled and snapped, groaning as they burned.
‘Scouts: watch our backs,’ the big man commanded, and immediately men peeled off the edge of the lines facing the fire and disappeared into the darkness.
‘Don’t you fucking move,’ the woman growled at Helga.
The flames bucked and tossed now, exploding upwards in showers of embers. The trees around the fire were bathed in white light and the faces of the men were suddenly clearly visible. Somewhere in the shadows, Streak screamed in fear.
The thing rose from the flames, half again the height of a man and thick like a tree trunk. It had the shape of two legs, but instead of arms, long, thick rope-tendrils of flame swung about. It had no head, but there was an uncanny feel to its trunk, as if it was looking right at them.
A young man at their side screamed and charged, but a thin line of fire lashed out and effortlessly caught his spear, snipping it in two. And still the flames grew. Helga saw the faces of the men, sweat-covered and fearless, but uncertain, no idea how to deal with this new enemy. Underneath its feet the ground was drying out, hissing with steam where water evaporated, charring and fusing. The thing stumbled out of the fire, towards their little group, and young Ognvald screamed in frustration, grabbed swords off two men and charged towards the fire demon.
‘STOP!’ his father bellowed, but the youth had his head down and was pushing against the oppressive heat.
Now.
Now was the time.
Helga reached and grabbed the woman’s shoulder. ‘Give me a knife.’ A bony hand shot up, faster than she’d thought possible, and latched onto her wrist, but Helga had worked a farm for twenty years and she held on. The flames reflected in the short woman’s wild eyes and in a blink her blade appeared at Helga’s throat.
Still Helga didn’t flinch. ‘Give. Me. A. Knife.’
To her surprise, something of a glint of genuine amusement twinkled in the woman’s eye. ‘Here you go,’ she said, twirling the blade around and offering it, hilt-first, with a sensible step back as soon as Helga’s grip loosened.
Grabbing the knife, Helga steadily turned around and caught Ygval’s eye. The man was in his mid-thirties, handsome in a wolf’s way, with a neat, grey-streaked beard and thick brown hair. She drew a deep breath and put everything she had into two words.
‘Trust me,’ she said.
Ygval looked at the short woman, then at the blade. Even in the rising heat, he looked bemused. ‘All right,’ he said.
‘Show me your shoulder,’ Helga said. At their side the fire roared as someone screamed in pain; out of the corner of her eye she could see Ognvald, staggering backwards, slapping at flames dancing on his arms and legs.
Ygval did as he was told, pulling down his shift to reveal lean, hard muscle.
‘I am going to cut you,’ she said, looking him straight in the eye.
He stared straight back and grinned at her. ‘Won’t be the first time,’ he said.
She smiled back. At least she’d had a little luck in the picking. She checked his hips. Sword. Good. Nice hips, too. Reaching down into her folds she very quickly substituted the woman’s knife for her own rune-carving blade. This lot would most likely have taken my head off on instinct if I’d pulled a concealed blade, she thought as she made four sharp incisions into the fighter’s flesh.
He looked down at h
is shoulder, at the blood that welled up through the thin cuts. ‘Nice rune,’ he said. ‘What does it—?’
His eyes opened as wide as they went, and he shuddered.
‘Take your sword and stab it in the heart.’
Ygval nodded, almost in a trance, and turned towards the raging, walking fire. The circle had expanded as wide as it could. Around the fire, anything that could burn was now alight. The fighter drew his blade and walked, slowly but surely, into the blazing circle.
Helga watched the big man, his son and the woman staring at Ygval. Everyone around the fire held their breath.
A tendril of fire lashed out and caught him right across the chest; there was a hissing sound and clouds of steam rose around Ygval’s head. Without a word, not even a cry of pain, the fighter went up to the fire-thing and stabbed his sword into the centre of it.
The fire hissed and spilled, the flames dancing away from the red-hot blade, but they couldn’t escape. Ygval moved to the left and slashed at the fire creature’s legs, then stabbed the creature once again before hacking at the tendrils. Everywhere he touched the monster, the fires softened and the temperature dropped another notch. Stunned silence turned to shouts of encouragement, then screams of triumph as the fire grew smaller and smaller, until with a final stroke the creature simply turned in on itself and vanished—
—and darkness flooded the forest circle.
‘Eyes,’ the big man growled, ‘get a new fucking fire started right now, but make it small. Someone see to Ygval.’ The smell of roasted flesh, sickly and shamefully delicious, was chased away by the rush of wind whooshing back to fill the space left by the fire.
Something sparked down by the ground and soon enough a small fire rose to replace the original campfire.
The Valhalla Saga Page 69