The morning light brought a spring in his step and this time Mouthpiece was more alert. He picked out the old man’s tent from a distance. The old horse thief hadn’t moved since this morning.
‘Thormund,’ Mouthpiece said softly, ‘wake up. Alfgeir Bjorne wants to talk to you.’ The old man didn’t budge and Mouthpiece rolled his eyes. It wasn’t that hard to get up, surely. ‘Thormund,’ he said again, this time more insistent, but the back remained turned and Thormund didn’t move. ‘The boot it is, then,’ Mouthpiece muttered. Closing the distance, he nudged the old man with his toe. ‘Wake up, hero,’ he said.
Thormund’s body was stiff as a board and cold to the touch.
Mouthpiece felt for the words but they wouldn’t come. Instead he sank down to his knees in the snow and put his hand slowly, gingerly, on Thormund’s shoulder. The old man’s face was grey and colourless. ‘Thormund – come on. Wake up.’ But he didn’t wake up. Mouthpiece really didn’t want to touch him; trying to pull the blanket off him didn’t work; it was stuck. Angry now, the young man pulled hard and Thormund’s body followed for a moment, but then it fell back, followed by the sound of wet cloth ripping, ripping again and then once more.
Mouthpiece stood there, struck dumb, holding a blanket with three big holes in it. Only now did he notice the blood in the footsteps leading from the battlefield to the tent. Thormund’s body lay on the ground, the bloodstained blanket covering what looked like stab wounds. There was an odd look on the old man’s face, quietly noble in death. It was something resembling a smile.
Distraught, Mouthpiece scrabbled to his feet and walked off in search of Alfgeir Bjorne to give him the news.
*
‘We must reconsider,’ King Jolawer Scot said.
Forkbeard looked bored. ‘Wait,’ he said, and when Jolawer looked like he was about to start speaking again, he added, ‘for the others. We need to talk about this.’
‘But we are talking!’ Jolawer said. ‘You and I decide – and I say we must go north.’
‘Wait for the others,’ Forkbeard repeated.
Jolawer didn’t have to wait long. Sigrid appeared, striding through the snow, her long fur cloak swirling around her legs. Erik Hakonsson, the Earl of the North, followed her, two of his chieftains trailing behind him. Alfgeir Bjorne and Prince Karle came over from the direction of the Swedes’ camp, along with the messenger, Thorkell the Tall.
‘We were attacked last night,’ Forkbeard said, addressing the circle. ‘We lost good men. Have any of you seen anything like it before?’
‘Yes.’ Erik Hakonsson’s face betrayed no emotion. ‘This has been happening all over the North: farmers and their animals get twisted. More and more of them belong to Hel.’
‘So the North is the source of this?’ Jolawer said.
Erik Hakonsson shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
Jolawer turned to Forkbeard. ‘We must go. There’s something going on up there; we have to follow Sven and Sigurd.’
Face carefully composed, Forkbeard looked back at him, then at Erik. One by one, he scanned the faces of the circle of commanders. When he spoke, the answer was simple. ‘No.’
‘Bu—’
‘Not yet.’
‘When, then?’ Jolawer blurted out.
Forkbeard nodded to the commanders to signal the end of the meeting. ‘Soon,’ he said as he walked off. Sigrid and Thorkell the Tall fell in line after him.
‘Believe me when I say there is little I would rather do than go back and retake my father’s home,’ Erik said. ‘But we have to stop Olav Tryggvason. He is the real danger.’ Erik and his men walked away without even glancing back at the three men left standing.
‘They’re wrong,’ Jolawer muttered. ‘This is all wrong. Sigurd and Sven were right.’
‘Maybe,’ Prince Karle said, ‘and maybe not. But we’re safe with the biggest army ever assembled. We’ll take on King Olav and then we can go and save the North.’
Jolawer looked away from his advisors, over the two camps and to the line of sour, stinking smoke coming from the carcases. ‘If there’s anything left to save,’ he said to no one.
*
Mouthpiece walked alone in the trek line and a handful of days passed through him like wind through the trees. After finding Thormund he’d gone numb. He didn’t feel bored, happy, cold or hungry. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, and no one wanted to talk to him. He just wandered along, following the broad back of the man ahead of him, whoever he was, one foot in front of the other.
‘Look!’ someone behind him called out, and the noise that followed his call made it absolutely clear what the man had seen.
A seagull – two, in fact, no, three, all circling and shrieking into the sky.
The word travelled up and down the line with lightning speed: it’s the sea. The sea.
Mouthpiece tried to shake himself out of his slumber. The trek was finally over! He turned to tell Thormund that he’d been right . . . but the old man wasn’t there. ‘Well, fuck you then,’ Mouthpiece hissed into his beard.
The line moved a half-step faster now, the men reacting like horses on the home stretch. The ground below them rose gently, not enough to be a climb but enough to compact the snow and make it even more slippery. The leaders of the line reached the crest of the hill and stopped, but the momentum of the line didn’t, so the warriors spilled to the sides, lining the crest. A wordless cry of celebration went out as the first hundred men disappeared from view, and five hundred yards to the left, snatches of shouted voices and commands echoed across from Forkbeard’s side. Curiosity put a spring in the step of the men around Mouthpiece and he had to push himself to keep up. Higher and higher the ground rose, until all of a sudden he could almost see over the edge. Only a few steps more, then—
Mouthpiece stopped at the crest of the hill and looked down.
Row upon row of longships sat on the beach, snowed under, but still formidable in their shape and size – not to mention the sheer number of them. He counted quickly and estimated that there’d be about eighty ships. This must be Forkbeard’s landing place, where he’d ferried his army over. Jolawer Scot’s men ran towards the ones closest to them, and over on their side Forkbeard’s men did the same.
Mouthpiece ignored the curses of the men behind him. He just stood still, staring at the beach. ‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘It’s really happening.’ Below, men made small by the distance were already swarming over the ships, hard at work, preparing them for launch.
Chapter 12
TRONDHEIM, NORTH NORWAY
LATE DECEMBER, AD 996
The morning sun climbed cautiously over the horizon. Yeah, you watch out, Valgard thought as he yawned in response, levering himself out of the throne where he’d slept and wincing in anticipation – but the pain didn’t come. He looked down at his feet. Last night’s blood had sunk into the wood, painting it the colour of rusted swords. Parallel lines led out of the blotches where Ormar and Jori had dragged the two dead chieftains by the shoulders and thrown them on the pile with the useless, broken ones.
He looked around appreciatively: Hakon Jarl’s hall was a husk. Everything that could be broken had been in last night’s orgy of violence. The heavy trolls had crashed through the sea of humanity, tossing men aside like a child’s discarded dolls, smashing skulls and snapping bones. He’d scolded them for that – he couldn’t reuse the ones with broken heads; experience had shown him they might not need brains, for once they’d changed they obeyed him without question, but apparently they did need their skulls intact to function. The blue-skinned giants had listened to his rebuke, but he had no sense that his words had meant anything to them.
Still, a new dawn and a new day; things to do, people to see.
Blinking, Valgard picked his way slowly through the rubble and towards the smashed doors where milky light was seeping through the gap.
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They stood in rows, silent and massive, marshalled by Botolf, Ormslev and Skeggi, easily filling the square in front of the longhouse and disappearing behind the huts. Everywhere he looked he saw blue-tinged skin, and men in the middle of a slow, agonising change. He’d counted them before he went to sleep last night, then he’d counted again.
Nine hundred and twelve.
‘We have work to do,’ Valgard said. The trolls stared at him. ‘You’re not going to be needing big speeches, are you?’ he added. ‘Fine by me. We’re going to the pile.’
The trolls shuffled out of the way as he walked past. Moving through the blue-skinned warriors he could sense in each a little bit of himself, a grain of strength. Every time he recited the words Loki had told him, every time a human being became a warrior carved from frost and belief in the old gods, he grew stronger. His body had more or less stopped bothering him, all the old aches and pains now just a fading memory, and he walked tall among his silent army.
As he rounded the corner the stench of the pile hit him. The cold might have dulled the worst of it but there was no denying all those bodies gave a lot of death to the wind. When the trolls, led by Botolf and Skeggi, had hit the village outside the longhouse they’d caught a lot of men sleeping. Some had died hard; others had run, disappearing into the snow, but the smartest ones had sprinted down to the harbour and thrown themselves onto ships, launching without supplies or suitable clothes . . . they’d be cold and miserable and dying somewhere out at sea now. So not much of an escape.
Valgard told the trolls to gather up all the bodies they could find, but they’d been too effective: the pile of corpses was at least a hundred feet high.
‘I thought we should set fire to them,’ Valgard said conversationally, but no one replied. ‘Oh, but you’re right,’ he continued, ‘the weight of them and the cold will make it impossible.’ He paced, frowning. ‘We need a lot of . . .’ He paused and chuckled. ‘We need firewood. Botolf?’ The big troll stayed silent. ‘Tear down the longhouse.’ He allowed the thought to trickle out of his mind and take root in the trolls, and they started attacking the longhouse with their bare hands, ignoring the snow cascading off the roof. They started kicking relentlessly at the walls until the timbers started snapping and then passed the broken bits of wood from hand to hand to hand. A ring of wood soon formed around the pile of corpses.
‘Very good,’ Valgard said, and reached for the fire-steel in his belt. He shoved a starter bundle of dry moss in between two bits that looked likely to take and struck until the shower of sparks ignited them.
The flames caught almost instantly, biting into the wood and licking the exposed flesh of a dead Viking. The tongues of fire hissed when the man’s frozen fingers thawed, and when the fat in his skin melted and dripped down, the red flame lurched and leaped, turning white-hot in spots. Thick tendrils of smoke drifted towards the sky and the scent of grilled meat gradually overpowered the smell of rotting flesh. The fire, insistent and hungry, travelled from log to log until the corpses were ringed by flame and shimmering air, and still the trolls flung more wood onto the pile.
Stop
Around him, all activity ceased as the trolls turned mutely towards the pyre. The heat coming off it was building, melting the snow around as flames caught clothing and hair, liquefying flesh and turning timber to ash.
In the sudden quiet, Valgard reached out with his mind. He could feel them like fog on his skin – but they needed more.
‘Wood!’ he shouted, gesturing wildly, and his silent army went for the furniture, adding broken benches and long tables, whatever else was left, throwing everything onto the voracious flames. The bodies in the pile were changing in colour, warping and twisting like worms trying to squirm off the hook. They looked almost alive, Valgard thought. Well, almost.
They were coming closer now: careful, cunning and hungry. He could feel the scent of battle and death drawing them in.
‘MORE TIMBER!!’
Behind him, a troll bellowed and Valgard turned just in time to see Ormslev balancing the massive logs that formed the doors from Hakon’s great hall, the muscles cording in his neck as he held them high above his head. The huge troll pushed through the crowd, planted the end of the twenty-foot-long door by the foot of the flames and pushed, and the big slab of timber rose, then toppled over and crashed into the burning bodies, sending a cloud of ash spiralling into the air. Something collapsed in the middle of the pile and flames rose even higher, caressing the doors, then they latched on and the conflagration billowed and roared.
Ignoring the blast of heat that had made the trolls step back, Valgard looked up towards the crest of the hill above Trondheim.
There he was: the wolf.
Come to me
All of you
Moments later, the hill was dark with shapes all heading towards the pyre.
*
The flames had died down soon enough and Valgard used boat hooks to drag enough corpses from the fire to bait the wolves and lure them in close. ‘We probably could have picked up wolves on the way, you know,’ he said to Botolf, ‘but I figured this was faster. And besides, burning things is fun.’ Behind him the last rays of light shone on a mound of bones, white against the black of charred corpses.
Turning the wolves had been both easier and harder than creating the trolls: their minds were simpler, but the hunger was much, much worse. Every time he tried it had threatened to draw him in, and every time it had cost him a lot to pull away.
‘So now we rest,’ he said to the ever-silent Botolf. ‘And tomorrow we march.’
The only answer was the sound of the wind and the crackling of logs on the still-smouldering pyre. Valgard fell asleep, contented and safe.
*
The slap that awakened him stung his cheek and a hand grabbed the material at his throat and hauled him up roughly. The man was tall – far taller than him – and terribly strong.
You’re going too far, mortal.
The voice filled his head and echoed inside his entire being.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ Valgard said, hating himself for sounding meek.
Didn’t mean to.
The voice dripped with contempt and Valgard, suddenly terrified, looked up at the face of the man who held him up by his shift. Smooth-skinned and clean-shaven, Loki the Trickster God stared at him with undisguised hatred.
You are drunk on power, mortal, and you thirst for far more than you can drink.
Raising an army?
And then what?
Around them, Trondheim looked like a reflection in a lake. ‘We could march on Bifrost,’ Valgard said. ‘You told me to.’
Don’t you dare, Loki growled. Don’t you fucking DARE tell me what I may have said! The grip around his throat strengthened and Valgard felt his heart pounding in his chest. I saved you. I made you. You are my creature and you will do what I tell you to.
‘I deserve this!’ Valgard croaked.
Loki looked at him and laughed. Then the God of Mischief spat in his face.
Everything went black. Then there was a spark. And another, and another. Like burning thatch, something in Valgard melted away and he could feel a great uncoiling, the snapping of a bone cage.
In the clearing in the forest, the birds fled the trees. The pregnant silence was broken by a faint hissing, a few bubbles on the surface of the pond – and then Valgard broke free. For the first time in his life he was whole, powerful. He pushed himself thrashing out into the world, all of him, curving fangs and long neck and slabs of meat layered in powerful muscle over a sleek body. Four stubby legs with slasher’s claws gripped the ground, pushing him forward. The forest faded away and suddenly he was in Trondheim, towering over Loki, shrugging off his grip as if he were a child.
Please—
And that was the last thing Loki said. Then Valgard’s jaws closed on his midsect
ion and snapped him in two.
The feeling was . . . strange.
The world tasted like an indrawn breath. He had a moment to stand, new-formed, a bull-monster on four legs with a long, muscular neck and a dragon’s head – and then the soul of a god flooded into him and Valgard lost his mind.
Feast at a table . . . raucous laughter . . . red-faced shame . . . angry words . . . the taste of the air in a wooded grove . . . a blind god . . . shrieks of terror . . . the feel of cold water on scales . . . cold chains on wrists . . . pain . . .
So much pain
Valgard’s body morphed again, compressing and pushing in on itself as it reclaimed its human form. Trondheim appeared around him and the man in front of him slowly let go and lowered his hands. The man he’d thought of as Loki was no longer god-like: he was still tall, still handsome, but he was no longer terrifying.
He looked at Valgard, and his eyes spoke of great weariness. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
Thank me? Why thank me?
Loki looked at him and smiled.
WHY THANK ME?
As Valgard reached out for him, Loki dissolved into air, slipping through his fingers.
*
It felt less like waking up and more like coming back from somewhere. The first thing that hit him was the feel – no, the taste of the air. It had a bit of everything on it, strands and tendrils stretching out into the whole world and scents that made him feel like he could sense everything, everywhere, every creature, living and dead.
Then he opened his eyes and he saw.
He saw the trolls, suddenly wary of him, moving away like beaten dogs, except for Botolf, who dropped into a clumsy bow. He saw the wolves, heads down, ears down, as reaction spread through their pack.
‘That’s right,’ he said. His voice sounded strange in his head – smoother, somehow, more resonant. He looked over his assembled army and couldn’t help but smile; the change had taken hold of the men now and they were growing before his very eyes. The memory of what they’d once been pulled at them, stretched them, forced them to rise and become what they could be. ‘I do deserve this.’
The Valhalla Saga Page 76