‘Welcome to Sveinn’s Mead Hall,’ Halvar said solemnly. ‘The Heart of the Horde.’
The six Thralls worked their way down, staring up at the roof, touching the walls, feeling the heat of the fire and gathering below the great Triple Horn.
‘It’s magnificent,’ said Brante.
‘Aye, that it is, laddie.’
Freyja walked to the centre and let the light play on her. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to take it all in later. For now, follow me and I’ll show you to the tower where you’ll find everything you need for your stay here. We’ll give you thirty minutes to freshen up before you gather back here.’
‘What then?’ asked Vidar.
Halvar reached down beside a bench and retrieved a large horn, edged with ornate silver. ‘This is the Mead Hall. So we’ll drink with Odin until we can no longer stand.’
XIV
In the upper floors of the tower, Freyja showed them to their rooms and they discovered chests with their names engraved on brass plaques containing items they would require for the week’s stay. There were boots, trousers, T-shirts and fur jerkins, all in the correct sizes. There was also soap and wash cloths, but no deodorant, toothpaste or any other cosmetic.
Calder was disgusted. ‘It would seem we’re literally living in the Dark Ages this week.’
These inconveniences were forgotten when they returned to the hall. Clay mugs had appeared and leather beakers filled with ale, cider or mead. The benches had been pulled around the fire and covered with furs. There was bread to dip in saucers of walnut oil, crumbly goat’s cheese and fruit. Halvar used stones in the hearth to bake flatbreads and slavered them with honey. The ale was foul, the cider head-blowing and the sweet mead addictive. When they had eaten and drunk their fill, Halvar sat on a central bench and began to tell them stories in a deep, mesmeric voice. He spoke of the Nine Worlds of ancient Norse mythology, which are each held in the branches of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. He told them of the Norn Sisters who weave all men’s lives. He described Asgard, the world of the Aesir gods; Niflheim, the primordial world of ice; Vanaheim, the world of the Vanir gods; and Hel, the place of the dead.
They listened rapt as he told of Odin’s journey to the Well of Urd in the roots of the World Tree, where he traded an eye for a taste of the well’s water which could give knowledge of all things to the drinker. Halvar recounted how Loki was chained in his cave by Thor, how his struggles sent earthquakes through Midgard, the world of men, and how – as destined – Loki’s eventual escape led to the destruction of the cosmos.
The Thralls swaddled themselves in furs and lost themselves in the words of the Housecarl and gradually, one by one, they fell asleep close together.
At dawn Halvar called reveille, pacing around the still hot embers and kicking them awake. The first grey light was just creeping through the windows in the east and the hall was frigid. They shivered and sat close to the hearth as Halvar began baking thick crumpets. There was lashings of butter and more goat’s cheese, but their thirst could only be quenched by hot water sweetened with honey.
‘I don’t function without coffee,’ said Calder.
‘You want coffee, you’d better shift your arse to Inverness Starbucks, missy, but don’t bother coming back.’
She bit morosely into a crumpet and whispered to Punnr beside her, ‘Christ, I’d kill for an espresso.’
‘And I’d murder for a ciggie.’
Breakfast over, Halvar led them outside and around the crumbling walls to the back of the castle. Although the sun was rising, the castle grounds were shadowed by a crag jutting above and the cold cut through them. The grass cracked and broke beneath their boots and steam plumed from their jittering breath. Formal gardens dropped away to bog and heather which sloped for half a mile to a loch, above which a layer of mist floated. Mountains reared on all sides, their flanks orange and their summits studded with snow. The sky was winter-white and cloudless.
‘You’re lucky bastards,’ said Halvar. ‘I’ve known this place when the rain lashes your face so hard that you cry for your mother, and I’ve still sent Thralls like you out into it.’
He took them around the keep and they found Freyja laying out items beside six goatskin sacks. ‘Good morning, Thralls. Select a sack and check each item before packing it. You’ll carry everything you need for the next two days.’
They worked through the piles. For each, there was a wooden spoon and bowl, leather beaker, flint and kindling, fur jacket and fur hat, flatbreads, cooked sausage, beans and millet. Once loaded up, they were presented with heavy wooden training swords and shields. They shoved the swords through their belts, used the leather straps around the goatskin sacks to secure them to their backs, and shouldered the shields. Weighed down, shivering with cold and still half asleep, they followed the Housecarls up the flank of the nearest hill.
The ground underfoot was frozen. Halvar maintained a murderous pace, which Brante matched, but the others became strung out. Freyja walked at the rear and watched those flagging, but didn’t offer to help. It was mid-morning before the sun reached them, but by then they were sweating from exertion and its rays were unwelcome. The ground thawed and became sodden, and they squelched and slipped and sank. They found mountain burns and used their beakers to quench their thirst, not caring about the sediment. When they reached the summit ridge, a wind surprised them and froze their sweat. They pulled on the fur jerkins and hats and struggled, heads down, into the gale.
By midday they had dropped into another glen and were climbing the far side. They had covered six miles when Halvar stopped them among a nest of rocks and let them eat flatbread and sausage. They were out of the wind and lay on the rocks, soaking up the sun. In the afternoon Halvar’s pace was unrelenting. They crossed two more ridges and toiled along the floor of a giant glen, following a stream upriver. Hertha fell far behind and so Punnr dropped back and argued with her until she allowed him to take her sack and shield. Less encumbered, she walked silently with him and occasionally summoned the energy to thank him and bless him.
By mid-afternoon Vidar had fallen back as well. He stamped and blew like a buffalo, forcing his stout legs to keep stepping forward, but soon even Punnr and Hertha overtook him. Brante waited for him on a rise and took his shield and sack. Vidar was red-faced with frustration, but he yielded the items and walked wordlessly beside him. Erland strode alone at the front and didn’t look back and Punnr felt an irrational anger towards him, as he himself laboured under the weight of two shields.
As dusk fell, they had covered sixteen miles of upland terrain. They were each lost in hell, sightless, unmoved by the magnificent scenery. Their feet were ribbons. Their bellies were full of gritty water yet their bodies were dried to a husk. Their skin was raw and salty, their clothing wet and mud-strewn. They walked now only because their legs knew no other motion. With the coming of evening, the temperature plummeted and they froze even under their extra layers of fur.
Finally, at the head of the glen, they saw firelight. It looked so fragile and minuscule among the hulking black crags and they were fearful that the vastness of the valley must surely extinguish it. They kept their salt-filled eyes upon its tiny light and didn’t dare blink lest they mislay the beacon. Punnr heard Hertha whispering gratitude to the gods and he summoned the energy to find encouraging words for her. Finally they were close enough to make out low stone walls surrounding the fire. They dreamed of collapsing on furs and eating hot stews and sleeping forever.
It was when they were almost upon the walls that Punnr’s exhausted brain began to register the figures beyond. They were unmoving, watching the approach of the group, and with sinking heart he counted eight. Brante had come to the same realisation.
‘Shit,’ he swore and glanced at Punnr through the gloom. ‘Not now, surely!’
They entered the enclosure and they could feel the welcome warmth of the fire. Calder walked towards it in a trance, but the motionless figures didn’t part for her and a rough hand
arrested her motion. ‘This fire isn’t for Thralls.’
She was beyond understanding and stood mutely with the firm hand on her shoulder, until Halvar came over and wheeled her away. ‘You want a hearth, you have to make it yourself.’
Without Halvar’s aid they would have failed in the task of creating fire on a damp Scottish mountainside. They spent their last reserves of energy finding bunches of heather and trying to generate a spark from flint and tinder. Halvar leaned in and showed them how, but even then they could only create a smoking smog of foliage. They were on the point of total mental collapse, when he finally relented and took charge. At last they had flame. They circled round, removed their boots for drying and took out their clay pots. Under the tutelage of Halvar, they cooked a bean and sausage stew, swallowing it ravenously with chunks of bread, washed down with fortifying wine which Freyja produced from her sack.
Only then did they swathe themselves in furs and begin to take notice of the other fire. The Perpetuals were eating their own stew and talking quietly, and their movement appeared unhindered by fatigue.
‘Why are they here?’ Brante asked.
‘To test you,’ Halvar replied, chewing on a piece of sausage. ‘To see if they need to worry about you, or whether you’re as horseshit as you look.’
With warm food in their bellies the Thralls wished only to nod off into oblivion, but Halvar wouldn’t permit it. He shook them. ‘Come. Your night’s work isn’t done yet. Leave your swords and shields, just bring your wits.’
They trooped out of the enclosure, watched by the Perpetuals, and followed him into the darkness. He stopped on the opposite hill flank and looked back at the fires. ‘Imagine that’s the stronghold of the Titan Sky-Rats. Imagine Alexander himself awaits capture within and all that’s needed is for one of you to evade the guards and breach the wall. How will you accomplish it?’ No one answered. They were shivering again and only half listening. ‘Rouse yourselves, you pathetic excuses for turds!’
‘We’ll select an individual defender and attack him as a group,’ said Brante. ‘Overpower him before the others can react.’
‘There are two fires within those walls. The guards will see you coming.’
‘We’ll blacken our faces, come at a rush.’
‘Anyone else still with us?’
‘We split into pairs,’ said Punnr. ‘Two pairs rush the guards, draw their attention, while the final pair uses the dark as cover.’
‘That sounds like a plan, laddie. I suggest you get to it if you want any sleep tonight.’
It was Punnr’s idea and he found the others looking to him for leadership. They circled him and awaited his direction. He chose the bigger ones as the decoys – Brante and Hertha, Vidar and Erland. Once spotted, they would need to take the counterpunch of the Perpetuals. The final pair required stealth and lightness of foot, and it seemed natural that it should be himself and Calder.
He sent the other pairs left and right of the fires, telling them to circle wide and then come in from opposite directions, and they set off obediently, adrenaline dispersing the final vestiges of fatigue. The last he saw of them was Brante’s bald head glowing in the starlight. He looked at Calder next to him. ‘All set?’
She was wearing a fur hat and she tucked her hair into it as best she could, then dropped down and found damp earth to spread across her face. He copied her and then they walked shoulder to shoulder back towards the lights. As they got closer, Punnr realised two things. The Perpetuals were armed with wooden swords and shields. And he could only see six of them. He touched Calder’s shoulder and they knelt. The visible defenders ringed the walled enclosure, black against the firelight, but they were bunched into two groups of three. One set patrolled the side facing down the valley and the other looked uphill. They had left a yawning gap in the path of Punnr and Calder. It looked so easy to rush through the heather and break into an unstoppable sprint for the wall.
‘Where are the other two?’ Calder whispered.
‘I think they may be hiding in the shadow of the wall, waiting for us to make a run for it. Let’s go forward, but very slowly.’
They progressed on hands and knees, listening and straining their eyes to make out movements by the wall. But their care meant their progress was slow and they were still fifty yards from the enclosure when they heard yells and saw the other Thralls attack. It was Brante and Hertha first, racing downhill out of the night, but they were clearly visible in the firelight and the three defenders locked shields and hurled into them. Brante knocked one almost flat, but the second one caught him with a blow from his wooden sword. The other three defenders didn’t react to the commotion and remained staring downhill, so that when Vidar and Erland rushed at them, they too had time to brace. The combatants struck each other with an almighty clatter that echoed around the silent glen. Vidar was an unstoppable rhino and almost made it to the wall with two Perpetuals on either shoulder, but they beat at him and his momentum stalled. They collapsed in a pile of writhing, cursing bodies.
‘We have to go,’ Punnr whispered. ‘In moments we’ll have all of them recovered and looking for us.’
They rose to a crouch and crept forward. The enclosure looked so empty and inviting ahead. Another forty yards and they would be there.
‘Welcome, arsehole.’ The voice was no more than a whisper and so close to Punnr’s ear that he felt its breath. He turned in bewilderment and looked straight into the face of the man with the effeminate mouth and black eyes whom he had goaded in the warehouse. He was unencumbered by sword and shield, a noiseless wraith in the night. ‘We’ve been hunting you.’
Before Punnr could react, the man stepped back and threw him a punch that sent him sprawling. It was followed by the full weight of the man. Punnr felt his long hair grabbed and his skull thumped against the mountainside. Fingers found purchase on his face and sought his eyes. Desperately he forced his knee beneath his assailant and kicked. The man was knocked to the side and Punnr rolled on top, but before he could steady himself, his attacker coiled like a snake and rolled him again. A fist slammed into his face and then hands found his throat. He kicked and hit and squirmed, but it was no use. The hands clung on and crushed his windpipe. He saw stars and heard blood roaring in his ears. He tried to drag a breath but nothing came. The night grew deeper and he was falling and spinning and then it started to feel pleasant, like dropping through endless layers of leaves to a warm embracing mattress.
He was almost gone, when there was a voice. ‘That’s enough children! Game over. We have a winner.’ Punnr felt the man yanked from him and Halvar’s rough hands were shaking his shoulder. ‘Are you still with us, laddie?’
Punnr took a savage, hoarse breath, sucking the mountain air into his lungs, and his vision returned, along with an almighty pain across his face. He blinked up at Halvar and tried to nod. The Perpetual stood behind Halvar, rigid with anger, his jaw clenching and his hands still balled into fists. He stared at Punnr with raw hatred. Punnr shook his head and looked to his left where the female Perpetual was sprawled, holding her stomach. He forced himself to focus and twisted to stare over his shoulder. There, on the wall, silhouetted by the fires, arms raised in victory, stood Calder.
Halvar chuckled. ‘Not a bad little missy, is she?’
Punnr wanted to laugh, but his face hurt too much. Halvar grabbed his arm and pulled him onto watery legs. ‘Now shake and make up, ladies.’
The Perpetual approached and regarded Punnr with cold interest. He held out a slim hand and as Punnr took it he thought how those same fingers had moments earlier been around his throat.
‘What are you called?’ the Perpetual asked.
‘Punnr.’
The man considered this. ‘And I am Ulf, the Wolf.’
‘You almost killed me.’
‘That was my plan.’
XV
Dawn arrived with freezing inevitability and they were kicked awake. Calder’s victory had invigorated the Thralls and they had celebrat
ed long around their fire, sharing Freyja’s wine and catcalling across to the sullen Perpetuals at the other fire. At last they had fallen into a dead slumber, wrapped in furs and watched over by Halvar.
Punnr stirred in the early light and looked over to see Brante grinning at him. Erland was already prodding at the fire. Hertha coughed and groaned somewhere to his right. Calder peeked at Punnr from her furs. Clouds had rolled in overnight and the morning was a damp grey monotone. Freyja showed them how to make a porridge from their millet. It was disgusting, but they wolfed it down and drank more of the sweetened wine. The two parties packed silently and then Halvar led the Thralls out onto the mountainside. They tracked through the wet grass and prayed that it wouldn’t snow. When Punnr looked back at the enclosure, the Perpetuals had disappeared and all that remained were two limp smudges of smoke.
He had enough sense of direction to know Halvar took them in a much wider loop this time. They climbed west and pushed across new glens. By midday they were once more in the zone of the dead, walking without thought, spread out in a long line, muddied, and parched despite a thin rain that dripped from the cloud blanket. Again he and Brante took extra loads from Hertha and Vidar. Vidar refused to give them anything until he fell flat in a bog and then he limply allowed them to unburden him. Halvar forced them to take a high line along ridges with views of endless folds of grey land sweeping away north and west. They surprised deer and saw buzzards and even, once, an eagle just below the cloud base.
By dusk they had walked fifteen miles. Their bodies were greased, their hair matted and their clothing so caked they doubted it could even be peeled off. They pushed over a final rise and below them was the castle. There was firelight in the windows of the hall and now there were also lights in the keep and two silver Range Rovers parked at the front. As they stumbled downhill, Punnr felt Brante’s arm come around his shoulder and then Vidar had an arm around his waist and Hertha and Calder joined too. They strode as a single unified line back to the Heart of the Horde. If they had looked, they would have seen Halvar grinning at Freyja, and realised that the whole exercise had been about team spirit. Throw every physical hardship at a group and see how they bond. Only Erland walked alone.
The Wolf Mile Page 11