Krowkr grabbed his brother’s elbow. “We should not be here,” he hissed.
“You could be right,” Owfastr whispered. “But we are, and Skatlakrimr is our friend. We can’t abandon him.” He shook Krowkr’s hand off his arm and followed their lifelong friend into Yarl Oolfreekr’s inhospitable hall.
With a sigh, Krowkr thumbed Veethar’s sigil and stepped over the threshold.
“The door!” grated Oolfreekr.
With a half-bow, Krowkr turned and pushed the door closed, fighting the wind for every inch. Once closed, the door blocked the worst of the cold, the worst of the shrieking voices that danced in the wind.
“Are you three too stupid to stay at home in a storm such as the one roaring outside?” demanded the yarl.
“My lord, we have traveled far, and the storm was nothing more than a dark smudge on the horizon when we set out. We—”
“So, your answer is yes? Is it not winter? Don’t all winter storms on this side of the mountains start the same way?”
Skatlakrimr cleared his throat and darted a glance at Owfastr. “Uh…”
“Well-said!” snapped the voice from the darkness. “Well? What do you want?”
Skatlakrimr set his jaw and squared his shoulders. He took a deep breath. “My lord yarl, men say you are the last of the oolfur streethsmathur.”
“Is it so?” asked the yarl in a harsh tone.
“Um, yes, Yarl. The legend goes that, in the time of my grandfather’s grandfather, you appeared a young man, but were already older than any could remember. They say you—”
“Who is this ‘they’ of whom you speak?”
Krowkr could have sworn the man in the shadows was moving around the room. Speaking from first one place, then the next.
“Well, er, the elders of our village. Our own yarl. Others we met while a-viking.”
“And so it must all be true, with so many swearing to its veracity.”
“Yarl, if it pleases you, the reputation of Hoos Oolfsins has spread far and wide. In your many duels, you have received many blows that would have killed another man.”
The yarl laughed—great, booming roars that seemed fit to drown out the wind outside.
“Yarl, we came to learn from you. We want to study your ways, to rebuild the Briethralak Oolfur. Our sacrifice to Owthidn has been made. We carry the required reagents for the ceremony. We shall swear fealty to you, to serve Hoos Oolfsins, to build your reputation until even the Danes have heard your name.” Skatlakrimr stopped, breathing a trifle hard, eyes blazing.
The hall stood steeped in silence, and it seemed that even the wind outside had stopped howling in the wake of Skatlakrimr’s impassioned speech. Krowkr felt a shiver race down his spine. This is a mistake! a voice wailed deep inside his mind. Run! One glance at his brother told him that Owfastr had drawn the same conclusion, but the same glance told him Owfastr would stand by Skatlakrimr, come what may. It is no matter, he thought. Owthidn wove our fates long ago. Besides, everyone knew you couldn’t outrun one of the Briethralak Oolfur.
When the voice came from the darkness again, it was mild. “All that? My, oh my!”
“Yes, Yarl,” said Skatlakrimr in a shaking voice.
“And do all those others—the village elders, the others you met a-viking, your yarl—do they also tell you my full name?”
Skatlakrimr gulped like a gilled fish. “Yes, Yarl,” he croaked.
“Yes, Yarl,” mocked the voice from the darkness. “Tell me!”
Skatlakrimr, Owfastr, and Krowkr all jumped at the snap of command in the old yarl’s voice. Skatlakrimr swallowed hard and said, “Yarl Oolfreekr Berserk-Morthinki, Lord.”
‘That’s right!” snapped the yarl. A large form moved in the shadows at the end of the hall. Far larger than the largest man Krowkr had ever seen. “You understand those old words?”
“Wolf-warrior the Berserk-killer,” muttered Skatlakrimr. “We know, Yarl.”
“Is it so? Do these others also tell how I earned the name?”
“In your duels, Yarl,” murmured Owfastr.
“What’s that? Speak as a man if you are one.”
“In your duels, Yarl,” repeated Owfastr, his tone firm.
“Yes, yes, that much is obvious. Why?”
“Because,” said Krowkr, “of who you dueled at the end.”
“Ah, he speaks! Obviously, the brains of the bunch, which bodes well for the others, since stones or firewood won’t best you in a test of intelligence.”
Krowkr’s cheeks burned, and Skatlakrimr’s face settled in hard, angry lines. “Because you dueled the other members of the Briethralak Oolfur, Yarl. Because you killed your brothers.”
“Yes,” hissed the yarl. “And you came anyway.” The last seemed to amuse the hulking figure swaddled in shadows. “Tell me: are all the men in your village so stupid?”
Skatlakrimr’s shoulders tensed, muscles bunching and leaping under the furs he still wore against the chill. His hand tightened on the haft of his axe.
“Good,” crooned the yarl. “You’ve spirit, that is good. Perhaps it will carry you on to Valhatla.”
The words bore the discernable edge of challenge, and Skatlakrimr jerked his head back as if the old yarl had slapped him. “Old man, watch what you say.”
“Ah, I’ve pricked your pride, at last.” The man in the shadows lurched to his feet, a darker swatch against a backdrop of flickering shadows cast by the single torch. He stepped around the table and strode to the edge of the light.
Krowkr’s heart leapt in his chest. The yarl’s dimensions surpassed big. His form was immense, though thin to the point of death.
“Tell me, boy,” said the yarl, jerking his chin at Krowkr. “You’ve more sense than this braggart here with the naked axe. Why have you let this man lead you to your doom?”
Krowkr shrugged. “These men are my friend and my brother. Should I not stand with them?” His hand went to the wolf’s-head insignia around his throat, and his thumb stroked the rune of Veethar on its back.
“Not if you prefer your guts on the inside of your skin, no,” grated the yarl.
“We three are standing here, in the light, in your hall, speaking to you as men would. There seems to be only one person here skulking in the shadows, bragging, trying to intimidate us,” said Krowkr.
Skatlakrimr looked at him as though he’d grown a third limb.
The yarl burst into raucous, ill-mannered laughter. “So, you’d look on the visage of Yarl Oolfreekr Berserk-Morthinki, would you?”
“We’ve come to—” began Skatlakrimr.
“Shut up!” snapped the yarl, waving his hand at Skatlakrimr without looking at him. “I spoke to the little bird.”
The ligaments in Skatlakrimr’s axe-hand creaked with strain, and his knuckles blanched, yet his face suffused with angry blood.
Little bird, thought Krowkr. How does he know the nickname Grandfather called me? Maybe the yarl didn’t—his name meant “rook,” after all. “Yes, Lord,” he said.
“Lyows!” said the yarl and a bright white light washed the shadows from the dark hall.
The yarl stood straight, and the top of his head was close to seven feet from the floor. His greasy hair hung limply across his back and shoulders. He smiled, and his lower lip split, dripping pus and blood down his chest. “Does what you see make an impression?” he crooned, a smile playing at his lips. “Does my sallow, waxy skin attract you? Do these boils and weeping pustules mark me as healthy?”
“Not particularly,” said Krowkr. “You appear to be in ill health, Yarl.”
“But I am not. This has been the state of my body for a very long time, and I’ll tell you a secret.” He leaned forward, a parody of intimacy. “I cannot die.”
“Yes, Yarl, that is why—” began Skatlakrimr.
“Hold your tongue!” snapped the yarl. “Or I will cut it from your head and eat it for my dinner.” His eyes seemed to whirl in his anger, and Krowkr would have sworn they changed color. He
glared at Skatlakrimr for a moment longer before his face relaxed, and his eyes drifted back toward Krowkr. “Have you nothing to say, little bird? No questions itching the back of your throat?”
Krowkr shook his head.
“And tell me, little bird, does this body of mine appeal to you? Do you want another such as this?”
Krowkr swallowed hard. The last thing he wanted was a pox-ridden, disease-riddled body. “Yarl, we’ve come to study the layth oolfsins. To become your apprentices. Either you will teach us, or you will not.”
The emaciated yarl threw back his head and laughed. “Is that all there is to it, little bird? Either I will teach you or not?” He dashed a tear from his cheek, a sardonic twinkle in his eye. “Do you imagine that I will allow you to leave this hall? Are you that naïve?”
“Yarl, there is nothing I can do that will force you to behave in one way or another. All I can do—all we can do—is to rely on your sense of honor, on guest-right, and on the stories of your character, ancient though they may be.”
“Is it so?” asked the suddenly somber yarl.
Krowkr wriggled out of his pack and set it on the floor at his feet. With a nod toward the yarl, he flipped open the bag and withdrew the perfect, preserved skin of a white wolf and unrolled it. “The elders say we each needed a skin from a wolf, and that you, as leader of the pack, would judge us based on the quality of the skin, and the quality of the animal from which the skin was cut. I hunted a white wolf, high in the mountains, above the ice-line. He led me on a merry chase, filled with guile and exhaustion, but in the end, I shot him in the eye with a single arrow, and he died.”
“Is it so?” repeated the yarl. “Quite a deed, little bird, but you don’t know what you are asking of me.”
“Yarl, with your permission?” asked Owfastr.
The yarl nodded, but his steely eyes fastened on Skatlakrimr’s in warning or challenge, Krowkr couldn’t begin to guess.
“Lord Yarl,” said Owfastr. “Please soften your heart, and hear our honest, respectful entreaties. The three of us have traveled a long way, we’ve followed the forms dictated to us by the village elders and from an old man dressed in wolf pelts that we met on the way here. We come to you on bended knee, out of respect. We come to you begging for the ancient knowledge you alone have. We want to become oolfhyethidn, oolfur streethsmathur, Yarl.”
“Is it so?” asked the yarl for the third time.
“It is, Yarl,” said Krowkr. “It has been all that we worked for, all that we’ve striven for, these many years. We come hoping you will find us worthy.”
“More’s the pity, lad,” said the yarl, seeming morose. “It was a pretty speech, both of you.” The tall man leaned against the table behind him. “You said you knew how I earned the name Berserk-Morthinki, but I don’t believe you’ve taken the story to heart. You haven’t asked yourselves why I slew all my so-called brothers of the wolf.”
The three young men looked at each other, and, as one, met the yarl’s gaze. “We assumed it was to gain leadership of the—”
“Stupid!” snapped the yarl, coming to his feet. “How can you look upon my body and not know? How can you stand in this long-abandoned hall and not know?”
“Know what, Lord?” asked Owfastr.
“That the Briethralak Oolfur is an abomination, for pity’s sake! I killed all the other oolfhyethidn because they became drunk on their power! They became a blight on these lands, challenging land owners to duels in which the land owner stood no chance. No chance! We can’t be killed! How do you expect anyone to win a duel against one of us?”
“And yet, Lord,” said Skatlakrimr, a smile creasing his face, “you killed the others.”
The yarl waved it away and sighed from the depths of his soul. “I had help, of course—from the gods themselves. But I speak to you plainly, and you do not see.”
“Tell us, Lord. Help us see,” said Krowkr, leaning forward, still holding the white wolf’s skin.
“If I teach you the layth oolfsins, it will destroy you, little bird. It will destroy everything that makes you a good man. It will leave you filled with lust—lust for the life forever denied you from that moment onward, lust for the death you will never see, lust for yet more power until nothing has meaning for you, not brotherhood, not family, not kinship or country, nothing! You will watch everyone you’ve ever known wither and die. Do you know the village in which I was born isn’t even a wide spot in the road anymore? You wouldn’t even recognize its name!”
Skatlakrimr motioned to Owfastr, and both men dropped their packs and removed the skins of the wolves they had hunted. Skatlakrimr’s was a beautiful sable that shone in the magical light. Owfastr’s was that of a massive gray timber wolf.
Again, the yarl sighed and sat back against the table. “I cannot dissuade you?”
Skatlakrimr shook his head.
The yarl’s eyes dismissed him and bored into Krowkr’s. “And you, little bird?”
Krowkr pursed his lips. “Yarl, I hear what you say, and I take it to heart. But know these two men are all I have left in the world. If it is as you say—and I do not doubt your word, Lord—and my brother and friend follow the way of the wolf, and I do not, what will remain for me?”
“Your life! A woman! Children! A pure life!”
Krowkr nodded, face grim. “But I can have those things and keep my brother and friend too, can I not?”
The yarl stared at him, eyes hardening, tears shining in the white light that filled the hall. He shook his head, the picture of bitter remorse. “Then watch on, boys. Examine what you will become!” With a savage thrust of his arms, he propelled the table away from him and lurched to his feet. “Oolfur!” he screeched, and the air thrummed and crackled with power. “Feast your eyes on what it is to follow the layth oolfsins!” His voice had dropped several registers and had grown in volume. It sounded as if gravel filled his mouth and throat.
His arms and legs jerked and twitched, while his jaw elongated with a horrible pop. His eyes changed to an animal golden-yellow and coarse gray fur burst from his skin. His arms and legs stretched as taffy would on a summer’s day, and his back hunched as though he wanted to hide his face from the three men. His ears melted and shifted upward, almost to the top of his skull, and then peaked and erupted with gray fur. He shook as a dog shakes water from his pelt before standing tall.
His head brushed the beams that supported the roof fifteen feet off the ground. He stretched his impossibly long arms wide and clicked his claws together as if he were snapping his fingers. His eyes narrowed, and he pointed one long finger at Skatlakrimr.
“Yes, Lord,” breathed Skatlakrimr. “You are magnificent!”
The oolfhyethidn made a disgusted noise and jerked his finger at the axe hanging at Skatlakrimr’s side. He tapped his chest, right in the middle.
“I think he wants you to attack him,” breathed Owfastr. “To teach you…” He shrugged. “Something?”
“I have no wish to harm you, Yarl,” said Skatlakrimr.
The…thing…the yarl had become made a rude noise and again pointed first at Skatlakrimr’s axe and at his own chest. He opened his mouth and made a mocking, crooning sound.
Skatlakrimr shook his head. “Why do you goad me? Have I been anything other than respectful, Lord?”
The beast made a humming sound, punctuated by repeated spasms in his torso—as though he was about to be violently ill. It reminded Krowkr of laughter, but laughter that hurt to produce. Again, the oolfhyethidn beckoned Skatlakrimr.
The warrior shrugged and withdrew his mail shirt from his pack and set about knocking the ice out of it. Owfastr helped him get the heavy shirt over his head and settled across his shoulders. The yarl looked on with a decidedly snide twist to his facial expression.
When he was ready, Skatlakrimr glanced around. “Do you have a rope so we can mark out the square?” he asked.
In half a heartbeat, Yarl Oolfreekr rushed forward to tower over Skatlakrimr. With slow precis
ion, he curled back his lips and exposed his fangs, growling all the while.
Skatlakrimr nodded to himself. “So be it.” He looked away, and made as if to walk away, but threw his weight to the side at the last moment, spinning on his heel, and swung his axe at the oolfhyethidn’s long neck.
The yarl must have seen the swing coming, must have known Skatlakrimr held nothing back, must have known it was a killing blow, but the beast did nothing—he didn’t even twitch. If anything, he seemed to tilt his head away from the strike to expose more of his neck to the oncoming steel.
A hoarse roar burst from Skatlakrimr as the axe struck true and blood belched from the old yarl’s neck. He jerked the weapon back, concern dawning on his face, and a great gout of gore gushed from the yarl’s neck as the axe head pulled free. “I’m sorry, Lord… I—I thought you were ready… I thought… I thought…”
The yarl stood stone still, a small smile playing at his lupine lips. His eyes darted from man to man, first Krowkr, then Owfastr, and last, Skatlakrimr. He tilted his head to the side and spat a wad of bloody phlegm at Skatlakrimr’s feet. Again, he beckoned the younger man forward. Again, he pointed at the axe and his chest.
Wide-eyed, Skatlakrimr glanced at Owfastr and shrugged as though asking what he should do.
The yarl growled deep in his chest and loosed a peculiar yipping bark, like a playful puppy.
Owfastr looked at his friend, arched his eyebrow and shrugged.
Skatlakrimr took a deep breath and set his feet in a firm stance. He adjusted his grip on the axe and lifted it high over his head.
The oolfhyethidn barked and waved his finger as if scolding a recalcitrant child. He tapped a long, clawed finger on the center of his own chest.
Skatlakrimr glanced at Owfastr again, and this time, Krowkr recognized the fear in his expression. He took a deep breath and lunged forward, putting his weight into his swing. The axe thumped into Oolfreekr’s chest, making the same noise it would have made slamming into a hundred-year-old yew in the prime of its life.
The force of the blow must have been great, but the yarl didn’t even sway as Skatlakrimr struck. He stood there, looking at the three men with an equable expression. He nodded at Skatlakrimr and motioned for him to remove the axe from the his chest.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 114