West of the Moon

by Katherine Langrish

  Men? Their faces are white as paint, and they seem shaggy round the head, like a lynx or bobcat. These are not the Kwetejk, not like any men Kwimu has seen. Are they the dead, returned from the Ghost World? But some pursue others, hacking with long axes, stabbing with lances. Some lie motionless on the ground.

  Sinumkw taps Kwimu’s shoulder. “Look!” His voice is awed, shocked. “In the river. Jipijka’maq!”

  Kwimu drags his eyes from the scene below. The hairs rise on his neck. Tethered in the wide shallows where the river meets the sea, are two things – bigger than the biggest canoe – and surely they are alive? For each has a head, staring shorewards from the top of a long neck. Each head is that of a Horned Serpent.

  The smaller of the two is red, and the horned head snarls open-jawed from the top of a slender curving neck. The larger one is striped red and black, and it lifts a goggle-eyed head, beaked like a screaming eagle.

  “Grandmother’s story,” whispers Kwimu. “This is what it meant.”

  These people are Jipijka’maq – Horned Serpent people, shape-changers. They come from out of the water and under the ground. Their whiteness is not paint, but the bleached pallor of things you find under stones. Perhaps, any moment now, they will slither off on their bellies into their dark earth houses. But why are they fighting, and why are they here?

  “Hah!” With a cough of disdainful laughter, Sinumkw points. “See the coward there!”

  A man in a green cloak is running away from the fight. He’s dragging a child along with him, a young boy. Past the end of the nearest house he stops, and pushes the child, pointing to the woods. The message is clear. “Run!” he’s saying. “Run and hide yourself. Go!” The child is sent staggering with a hard shove between the shoulder blades. The man whirls and goes racing back.

  So he’s not a coward after all; he was trying to save the child. His enemies are coming to meet him. In the lead is a burly, bear-like man, obviously a chief. By his side is a boy no older than Kwimu, with long loose golden hair that floats behind him as he runs, yelling. The burly chief shouts an order to his warriors. They spread out to catch the man in green, who dodges and dashes like a hunted animal, heading for the river. And then he trips and falls.

  The chieftain shouts again and points. His men scatter. The chieftain’s right arm comes up, balancing his spear. He throws.

  With whoops and howls his men run forward, closing in on the crumpled green bundle. The spear stands straight up, a marker pointing at the sky. It twitches, it wags to and fro. The green bundle is still moving, trying to crawl. Kwimu’s breath hisses through his teeth.

  The boy with the golden hair strolls up behind the men. The others let him through; the burly chieftain puts an arm round his shoulders. Together they gaze at the man on the ground. The chieftain tugs his spear out. The golden youth hooks a foot under the body, rolling it on to its back. The man’s pale face comes into view. Still alive. His fingers open and close like claws.

  Warriors taunt each other when they fight. If the man on the ground can still speak, this is the moment for his final defiance. And perhaps he does gasp something. But the golden-haired youth laughs. He puts the point of his long red blade to the man’s throat, and shoves it in. Kwimu shuts his eyes. Only a blink, but when he opens them again, it’s over.

  He looks away, and freezes. That child – the child the man in green was trying to save! He’s peering around the corner of the nearest house, clutching the sod walls with both hands, craning his neck. He sees the dead man, and shrinks like a snail when you tap its shell.

  The burly chieftain gives orders, pointing this way and that. His men fan out and start searching between the houses. Kwimu sucks in his bottom lip. They’re hunting for the child. And they’ll find him; there’s nowhere to run.

  The child presses against the wall. Any moment now the men will come around the building, and there he’ll be. Then Kwimu almost shouts. The child flings himself at the soft sod wall, digging fingers and toes into the cracks and crannies. He scurries up like a mouse, reaching the roof just as the nearest man rounds the corner. He lies flat. His light hair and clothes blend with the pale grasses growing on the turf roof, but he’s still completely visible to anyone who glances up. In fact, Kwimu can see one of his feet sticking over the edge.

  The man doesn’t look up. He strides along with his head down. Kwimu hardly breathes. Don’t move. He’s gone, but another one’s coming. Don’t move!

  Neither man looks up. It seems crazy, but they don’t. Kwimu sighs silently, surprised by the strength of his feelings for this strange foreign child. Beside him, Sinumkw shakes with admiring laughter. “That little weasel! To fool all those warriors with one simple trick! Look, they can’t think where he’s gone.”

  It is funny, in a way, seeing the men poking and prodding around the houses, and gazing into the woods, when all the time he’s a few feet above their heads, as still as a sitting bird. All the same, Kwimu’s nails are cutting into his palms by the time the men give up. Maybe their hearts are not really in this search for a small boy. They return to the chief and his golden son, empty-handed.

  The chief shrugs. It’s clear he thinks it doesn’t matter much. He gestures to the bodies lying on the ground, and goes on talking to his son. The men drag the bodies to the water’s edge. They wade yelling into the cold river, carrying the bodies out to the smaller, slenderer of the Serpents, which jerks at its tether as if outraged at being given such a cargo. One by one, the dead are tumbled in.

  Where’s the child?

  Sidling up the roof like a crab.

  At least he’s pulled his foot in – no, don’t go near the ridge!

  As if he hears, the child sinks down just below the ridge, but he keeps popping up his head and peering over. Kwimu bites his lip in agony. Stop doing that, they’ll see you!

  The chief gives another order. The child on the roof understands: he flattens himself again: and the men troop back to the houses and empty them. Everything is carried out. They stagger down to the river under bundles of furs, and heave them into the belly of the second Horned Serpent, the big one with the eagle’s beak. They bring out gear, pots, sacks, weapons. Shouting, they load up with timber from a pile near the beach. “They’re leaving!” Kwimu says with a gasp of relief. “They’re going away!”

  Sinumkw makes a brushing movement with his hand: quiet. He watches the scene below with a hunter’s intensity.

  At last, all is ready. A small, fat canoe collects the chieftain and his golden son – they don’t have to wade through the freezing water. The chieftain hoists himself aboard the big Serpent, but his son is ferried to the smaller vessel, and leaps aboard. Kwimu shades his eyes. The boy strides up and down, pouring something out of a big pot. He upends the pot, shakes out the last drops, and tosses it overboard. With an arm twined around the Horned Serpent’s painted neck, he catches a rope that uncoils through the air from the bigger vessel. He knots it at the base of the neck, and jumps into the waiting canoe. In moments, he’s back with his father.

  The men lift out long, thin paddles. Slowly the Horned Serpent turns away from the shore, swinging with the current till it’s pointing out to sea.

  Kwimu has never seen paddling like this before, with all the men facing the wrong way. How can they see where to go? But it seems to work. The red and black jipijka’m crawls away out of the river, loaded with furs and timber, towing its companion behind it – the red Serpent of the Dead.

  They’re going, and they haven’t found the child. Does he know he’s safe? Kwimu glances down at the roof.

  The child is sitting up, staring.

  Get down, get down – they might still see you…

  But the child gets slowly to his feet. He stands on the rooftop in full view of the river. He lifts both arms, and starts to wave and scream. He’s dancing on the roof, yelling in a shrill voice.

  “He mocks his enemies!” says Sinumkw in deep appreciation.

  But Kwimu isn’t so sure. He’s
got a cold feeling that if he could understand, the child might be screaming, “Come back, come back! Don’t leave me!”

  But the two vessels are leaving the river, heading into the hazy waters of the bay. Something else now: they’re casting off the rope. A feather of fire flies through the air, curving into the red Serpent. A moment later, flames splutter fiercely up.

  “Oil,” Sinumkw nods. “They poured in oil to make it burn.”

  Kwimu can actually hear it, crackling like a hundred spits. Black smoke pours up in a tall column. The red serpent body seems writhing in flames.

  Down below, the child is scrambling off the roof. He drops the last few feet and goes racing over the ravaged grasslands towards the beach.

  “Let’s get him!” Kwimu turns to Sinumkw. “Please, Nujj…”

  “No.”

  “Oh, please, Nujj. He’s only little, and he’s brave…”

  “A bear cub is little and brave,” says his father, “and if you take one for a pet, it will grow up into a big bear and claw your arm off.”

  Kwimu swallows. “I know… but can we leave him to die?” “They have.” Sinumkw nods towards the bay. “He’s not one of the People, Kwimu. Not one of us.”

  “But you like him,” says Kwimu desperately. “You laughed at the way he tricked the warriors. See – Fox approves!” Fox twists his head and licks Kwimu’s hand to encourage him. Kwimu’s words come from deep inside him, like a spring of water that has to bubble out. “He might become your son, Nujj. My brother.”

  Sinumkw looks at him. He sighs. “Well. We can try. Perhaps the cub is young enough to tame. Don’t be surprised if he bites you.”

  The slope ahead is too steep to descend. They turn back into the woods to find another way down. Kwimu looks back once more at the burning vessel, and is in time to see it tip up and slide neatly under the water. The snarling serpent head vanishes last, and nothing is left except for drifting smoke fading against the sky.

  The other jipijka’m is already out of the bay and turning up the gulf towards the open sea: and from this distance it looks more like a serpent than ever – a living serpent, swimming quietly away through the haze.

  Down on the shingle, nine-year-old Ottar, young son of Thorolf the Seafarer, stands knee-deep in the cold waves. Tears pour down his cheeks. He’s orphaned, desperate, stranded in this horrible place on the wrong side of the world. He hears a shout from the beach behind him. He turns, his heart leaping in wild, unbelieving hope. Somehow it’s going to be all right – it’s been a bad dream or an even worse joke – and he won’t even be angry. He’ll run to whoever it is, and cling to them, and sob until the sobbing turns into laughter.

  And then he sees. His mouth goes dry. Coming towards him on the rising ground between him and the houses are two terrible figures. Their long hair is as black as pitch, and tied with coloured strings. Their clothes are daubed with magic signs. Furs dangle from their belts. They are both carrying bows. But the frightening thing – the really frightening thing about them – is that you can’t see their expressions at all. Half of their faces are covered in black paint, the other half in red. Their eyes glitter white and black.

  “Skraelings!” Ottar whispers. “Dirty Skraelings!”

  He prepares to die.

  Chapter 42

  Water Snake

  THE GREEN SEA slopped around Peer Ulfsson’s waist, and rose to his chest. “Yow!” he yelled. As the wave plunged past, he bent to look through the water.

  There! He saw it: the hammer he’d dropped. His fingers closed on the handle as the next wave swept past his ears and knocked him over. He rolled backwards in a freezing froth of bubbles and sand and struggled up, spluttering but brandishing the hammer in triumph.

  “Got it!”

  “So I see.” Bjørn’s face was one wide grin. “If you’d tied it to your wrist like I told you, you wouldn’t have had to do that. Get dressed: you look like a plucked chicken.”

  Peer laughed through chattering teeth. He dragged his discarded jerkin over his head, fighting wet arms through the sleeves. It fell in warm folds almost to his knees, and he hugged his arms across his chest. “Aaah, that’s better. I’ll leave my breeches till I’ve dried off a bit… Who’s shouting? What’s wrong?”

  Bjørn stiffened, shading his eyes to look down the fjord. “It’s Harald. He’s seen a ship. Yes – there’s a strange ship coming.”

  Peer jumped up on the new jetty and joined Bjørn at the unfinished end, where the last few planks waited to be nailed down. Out where the shining fjord met the pale spring sky he saw a large, reddish sail, square-on, and the thin line of an upthrust prow like the neck of a snail. A big ship running into Trollsvik before the wind.

  “Who is it?”

  Bjørn didn’t take his eyes off the ship. “I don’t know the sail. Could be raiders. Best not take chances. Run for help, Peer. Tell everyone you can.”

  A lonely little village like Trollsvik could expect no mercy from a shipful of Viking raiders. Peer turned without argument, and saw people hurrying across the beach. “Look, Harald’s raised the alarm already. Here he comes, with Snorri and Einar…”

  “Hey, Harald!” Bjørn bawled at the top of his voice. “Whose ship is that?”

  A bandy-legged man with straggling grey hair raised an arm in reply as he puffed across the shingle and climbed painfully on to the jetty.

  “No idea,” he wheezed. “You don’t know it, either?”

  “Not me,” said Bjørn. Peer looked at the ship – already much closer – then back at the little crowd. Most of the men had snatched up some kind of weapon. Snorri One-Eye carried a pitchfork, and old Thorkell came hobbling along with a hoe. Einar had a harpoon. Snorri’s fierce, grey-haired wife Gerd came limping after him over the stones, clutching a wicked-looking knife. Even Einar’s two little boys had begun piling up big round stones to throw at the visitors. Peer wondered if he should join them. Then he realised he was holding a weapon already. His hammer.

  He hefted it. It was long-handled and heavy. When he swung it, it seemed to pull his hand after it. As if it wanted to strike. Could I really hit anyone with this? He imagined smashing it into someone’s head, and sucked a wincing breath.

  The neighbours were arguing.

  “No fear!” yelled Gerd, lowering her knife. “See the dragonhead? That’s Thorolf ’s ship, the old Long Serpent that Ralf Eiriksson sailed on.”

  “It never is,” Snorri turned on his wife. “Thorolf ’s been gone two years now, went off to Vinland.”

  “So what?” Gerd was undaunted. “He can come back, can’t he?”

  “Fool of a woman,” Snorri shouted. “That’s not his ship, I say! This one’s as broad in the beam as you are – the Long Serpent was narrower —”

  “That isn’t the Long Serpent,” Peer put in. “I should know. My father helped to build her.”

  “This looks like a trader,” Einar said. “Built for cargo, not war.”

  “That’s all very well, Einar. Plenty of traders turn into raiders when it suits them – doesn’t mean her crew won’t fight.”

  “What do you think, Bjørn?” asked Peer in a low voice. “Will we have to fight?”

  Bjørn gave him a glance, half-humorous, half-sympathetic. “I don’t know. Let’s put on a good show and hope they’re friendly.”

  Peer tensed his shoulders and took a good grip on the hammer. The ship was so close now that he could see the stains on the ochre-red sail. The hull was painted in faded red and black stripes. A man stood in the bows, just behind the upward swoop of its tall dragon-neck.

  We could be fighting in a few minutes. I might die… And with a jump of his heart he thought of Hilde, up at the farm on Troll Fell. What if he never saw her again? And who would warn her – who would tell her, if these men were dangerous?

  There was a flurry of activity on board. Down came the sail in vast folds. Out came the oars to row her in. The villagers bunched like sheep.

  The man in the bows cupped a han
d round his mouth and yelled, “Bjørn!”

  Bjørn threw his head up. “Arne!” he shouted back. “Is that you?”

  Arne, Bjørn’s brother! The villagers broke into relieved, lively chatter. Peer unclenched stiff fingers from the haft of his hammer. He wouldn’t need it as a weapon after all: he could go back to knocking in nails.

  Could he have used it? Would he be any good in a fight? The word coward brushed across his mind. With a shrug that was half a shudder, he dismissed the idea. It didn’t matter now.

  “The ship’s called Water Snake,” Arne shouted across the narrowing gap of water. “Gunnar Ingolfsson’s the skipper. He wants to meet Ralf Eiriksson.”

  “Who’s this Gunnar? Why does he want Ralf?” Peer wondered, as the ship closed on the jetty.

  “Gunnar Ingolfsson?” Bjørn snapped his fingers. “He’s the man Thorolf took on as a partner, a couple of years ago. A sea rover, a bit of a Viking. He and Thorolf sailed off to Vinland together in two ships. So why’s he here, and why’s Arne with him?”

  Peer shrugged. He wasn’t curious about Arne.

  “Vinland? Vinland?” muttered Einar. “Where’s that?”

  “The land beyond the sunset,” Peer said eagerly, and Snorri added, “Remember? When Ralf and Thorolf found a new land all covered in forests…”

  “I know that,” Einar huffed, “but I thought they called it Woodland.”

  “They did!” Snorri waved a triumphant finger. “But other ships went there and found vines. Vines, Vinland, see? This Gunnar must be making a second trip. I’ve heard you can bring back a fortune in timber and furs and grapes. I’ve got half a mind to go myself.”

  “Ho, yes,” scoffed Einar. “And how would you know what a grape looks like? Ever seen one?”

  “Arne’s a wild one,” Bjørn said to Peer. “What’s he done with his fishing boat? Sold it? He’s crazy.”

  “He always wanted to go a-Viking,” Peer pointed out. Bjørn grinned suddenly. “That’s why I say he’s crazy!” And that’s why Hilde likes him, thought Peer. He wished he could do something exciting or brave.