Berserker Series, Book 1

by Emmy Laybourne

  “Please tell me,” Rolf pleaded. “The man I’m with is crazy. He will bring pain—”

  But the woman set her mouth in a line. She turned her back on Rolf, turning to face toward the wall.

  “Hilde,” her husband said. “I think we should tell—”

  Ketil was advancing on him.

  The accordion gave a desperate, unmusical wheeze.

  “Be quiet!” she scolded him. “We cannot tell them what we do not know!”

  “Just tell us, when did they leave, which way did they go?” Rolf pleaded.

  The man screamed. Ketil had put one hand on the back of his head and stuck the knife in the little man’s right ear.

  Hilde pushed past Rolf and tried to reach the shotgun Rolf now saw was mounted above the door.

  Rolf grabbed her skirts and pulled her from the gun.

  Ketil made a fist and pounded the knife into the little man’s ear, as one would a nail into a knot of wood.

  The woman was scrambling to get the door open. She had her fingers around the edge of the door, was scraping at the floor with her legs, trying to find purchase, but Rolf was in the way.

  The little man screamed and screamed, and Rolf suddenly couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t bear for the woman to die.

  Rolf threw the door open. “Go!” he shouted to the woman. Then she was running, racing toward the barn.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ketil asked Rolf, with a little laugh. “Why are you such a fool?”

  Ketil threw the body of the German down and crossed to the door.

  “You’re too soft for this work, old man,” Ketil said to Rolf.

  The German man’s feet were twitching. Rolf staggered outside to see the woman turn to face Ketil. She stood near the barn doors, an ax in her hands.

  Ketil crossed the yard, muscular energy vivid in his stance.

  Ketil spun in the air and kicked the ax out of the woman’s hands. He snatched the ax from the air.

  “Don’t!” Rolf cried. “Please!”

  But Ketil brought the ax down, and then there was silence. The weapon hung from his hand as he strode back toward Rolf.

  “That’s enough from you,” Ketil said. His head was lowered, like a bull. Rolf could see the irises of his eyes were full black. A Berserker enraged.

  Rolf held up his hands.

  “Slow down there, Ketil. You and I are on the same side of this.”

  “Do you know they laugh at you? The Baron and his noble friends? They laugh at you with your old ideas. Your precious studies.”

  Rolf backed away. “I’ve been working with Baron Fjelstad for twenty years—”

  “You have these ideas about the Baron, about what he does and why he does it. You think he does it for the love of the Nytte, or for the old Gods. But that’s not it at all.”

  Ketil threw the bloody ax aside.

  “He isn’t just protecting us. He is training us to fight, to kill,” Ketil continued. “We do raids on the Greenlanders. Me and the other Berserkers. Did you know that? Did you know we practice slaying them, and no one finds out?”

  There was a killing gleam shining in the Berserker’s eyes. The pupils were huge, taking in all the light, Rolf’s posture, the shadows, the fallow wheat field beyond. Rolf knew Ketil’s senses were heightened. He knew the young man was reviewing all the ways he could take Rolf’s life.

  Rolf had to do something, or he would be the Berserker’s next kill. He stepped forward and slapped Ketil across the face.

  “Ketil Nilsen, do you think me a fool?”

  Ketil’s eyes were wide, surprised out of his blood-rage.

  “I know all about the Baron’s plans,” Rolf bluffed. “Who do you think has helped him all these years? I know about Greenland. I encouraged him to send you!

  “I am in command of this expedition. You are here to help me. Do not forget it!”

  Ketil’s neck was flushing. He looked away. Rolf had won his life, at least for the day.

  “Now,” Rolf continued. “Let us search the house. Perhaps our young Nytteson left us some clues. And there is probably bread to eat.”

  Ketil backed away from Rolf, and toward the house. His hands were shaking, Rolf noticed.

  The house was tidy and charming, except for the body of the farmer, which lay faceup on the hearth. One boot was too close to the fire and was smoking. Rolf kicked it out. The house could burn, but not until they left.

  Ketil went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard. He found leftover cornbread and fried ham from breakfast. He devoured it eagerly, not offering a bite to Rolf. But Rolf did not mind.

  Rolf’s attention was drawn to a slip of paper on the table, under a tin mug of coffee.

  It read, “Håkon Thorson, Wolf Creek,” in a schoolgirl’s careful, looping handwriting.

  “What’s that?” Ketil asked. He was standing in the doorway to a back room. He held a bottle of schnapps by the neck.

  “The name and address of their uncle,” Rolf said. “He’s in a town called Wolf Creek.”

  Rolf handed him the scrap of paper.

  “We will ride all night,” Rolf said with authority.

  Ketil nodded soberly.

  Rolf was pleased. He realized now he ought to have taken a firm hand with Ketil much earlier. The young man was a Berserker. Of course, he would respond better to stern discipline than camaraderie.

  Rolf found another loaf of bread, a quart-size jar of pickled eggs, and some smaller jars of preserves, which he gave Ketil to carry.

  The two men exited the house into the calm, cold sun of the midday. The chickens were scraping on the ground. A fat hen was standing on the corpse of the farm woman. The rooster chased her off and took the spot, standing on the hump of the woman’s rear end. Its voice was garish and ugly when it crowed. Rolf suppressed the urge to wring the bird’s neck.

  “We should water the horses,” Rolf said.

  “Yes,” Ketil answered. He went to the well and lifted off the heavy wooden lid. Ketil stood looking down into the depths of the well for a moment.

  “Is there a bucket?” Rolf asked.

  Ketil didn’t answer, only came stalking over to Rolf.

  Too late, too late, Rolf saw Ketil’s eyes were dark again.

  Ketil grabbed him by the collar of his coat and dragged him toward the well.

  “Stop! Stop it. Ketil, in the name of the Gods, stop!”

  Rolf’s feet dragged great ruts through the snowy, muddy ground.

  “Great All-Father, hear me!” Rolf shouted. He reached for the stone in his pocket, as if it could help him now. “Heilir Æsir!”

  “Let’s see if the Gods can hear you from down below,” Ketil said.

  And he threw Rolf headlong down the well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  By the time they stopped for the night, Hanne’s fingers felt frozen to the pommel, even though she wore her mittens. The day had become bitterly cold.

  They made a near-silent camp. Owen seemed upset they’d had to stop at all.

  Earlier in the day, after he’d fallen into the Missouri, he sat glowering by the small fire Knut had made. Hanne forced Owen to drink mug after mug of hot coffee. He changed into the creased and dirty spare clothes from his saddlebags. His boots gave off steam by the fire, as had his new poncho.

  Owen had looked utterly miserable sitting there. Hanne longed to speak some words of comfort to him, but she knew she had lost that right. They had caused him real grief, she could see that now.

  The ride after that had been dull and grim. Owen set a fast, unforgiving pace. He didn’t call for them to make camp for the night until the sky began to darken.

  Then as soon as he had asked Stieg to make the campfire, he took his rifle and stalked off in search of game for supper. Daisy whined as he walked away, but Owen didn’t seem to hear.

  Much of the provisions that poor Muley Wuley had been carrying were soaked and ruined. With every parcel Hanne opened, her heart sank. All the good chicken Frau Gerlinger
had packed was frozen now, slimy and coated with icy sludge. The cornbread had dissolved into lumpy mush. Worse still, the beans and flour must have fallen from the bags into the river and were lost. There was hardtack, which was wet but had retained its shape. Its taste had neither improved nor worsened with a dousing in the Missouri.

  The Hemstads sat around a big fire that seemed to give off little warmth, waiting for the coffeepot to boil. Hanne stirred the makeshift porridge she’d made by adding snow to the ruined cornbread. It smelled good enough to travelers with hungry bellies.

  “I wish we were back at Frau Gerlinger’s,” Sissel complained.

  “Yes, yes, we know,” Stieg snapped.

  “I’m cold and hungry,” she continued.

  “We know!”

  “Why is Owen so cross with us?” Sissel said, though he might return at any moment. “What did you do to him?” she asked Hanne.

  “I did nothing!” Hanne said hotly.

  “Well, why is he so cross?” she persisted.

  “It’s complicated,” Stieg said.

  “You always say that when you don’t want me to know something,” Sissel said.

  Stieg sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face.

  “We found out that the law is after Knut, here in America.”

  “They think he was the one who committed my crimes,” Hanne said.

  Sissel’s mouth twisted in anger.

  “No wonder he’s angry! The sheriff is after us? You should have told him,” she said. “You should have told me!”

  “We did not know about the bounty until today,” Stieg protested.

  “He is our friend,” Sissel said.

  “He only became our friend on the trail,” Stieg said. “We did not know we could trust him before. We still don’t know very much about him.”

  “That’s a stupid thing to say,” Knut broke in. They all looked up with surprise. “He’s a good fellow and you all know it. He could have turned me in when he found that wanted poster. He could have brought the law and turned me in for the reward.”

  Knut stood and went off for some air.

  Hanne watched her brother’s vast bulk move through the woods. He seldom ventured an opinion. When he did, he was always right.

  * * *

  ROLF PRAYED for a quick death. The Germans had dug a proper well, with rocks fitted into the sides. It was deep and the water deathly cold. The water level was low—they had had to dig far.

  He would have liked to see the sky again, but Ketil had closed the lid on him.

  His back was scraped from his shoulder to his hip. It was surprising he hadn’t broken a bone. He wished he’d broken his neck.

  Shuddering with the cold, Rolf clutched the rune stone in his hands. He thought of Odin. Of the rune on the face of the stone he could barely feel in his fingers. He didn’t want Ketil’s sneering face to be the last image in his mind when he died.

  The chattering of his teeth came louder and louder in the well.

  Heilir Æsir, he prayed, calling on all the Gods. Please take me now.

  His hands shook so badly he fumbled the stone, and it dropped into the water.

  This seemed fateful. Odin had abandoned him. And then he heard a carriage approaching.

  * * *

  THE DOCTOR FROM Townsend managed, with the help of his horse, to drag Rolf out of the well. Rolf had screamed every time his wounded shoulder hit the side of the well, had screamed until he blacked out.

  Now Rolf sat bundled on a cot in the back room at the Townsend General Store. He was next to a stove. They had removed his torn shirt, and a bandage for his back was wrapped around his rib cage.

  The shopkeeper’s wife had brought him a toddy of rum, tea, and molasses. He’d drained the mug, and now listened as the floor pounded with boots arriving into the main room of the store beyond the thin plank wall. With careful fingers, he felt the wound on his back. It was bandaged neatly, but the rough cloth of the bandage made his raw skin scream.

  Rolf gave thanks over and over. He had lost his rune stone, or maybe he had given it as an offering when it sank away in the well. Either way, he had been saved by the favor of the Gods. His mission was clear—he must find the Nytteson and help them. He must protect them from Ketil.

  The doctor was holding court in the front room, telling and retelling how he’d found the German couple butchered and Rolf down the well. Rolf had learned Gerlinger was the surname of the farmers from the cries of anguished disbelief coming from the next room.

  The men began to organize a posse. Rolf listened carefully.

  “I’m tellin’ you, I saw the great brute from that wanted poster right here in town!” said a man with a gravelly voice. “He was suckin’ on a candy stick. I remember it ’cause it looked so odd. A great big fellow like that, but happy like a little kid.”

  “We need to set out straightaway!” another man shouted. “We’re wasting time.”

  “We don’t know for sure it was him—” countered another voice.

  Rolf banged open the door. Stood there shirtless, trailing a blanket, leaning on the door frame.

  “He’s awake!” said a stout farmer.

  The men began shouting, asking Rolf to identify the killer.

  The doctor shushed them all. Crossed to where Rolf stood and peered into his eyes.

  “Do you know your name, fella? You had a bad fall.”

  “I’m Peter Kronen,” Rolf lied.

  “How’s your back?”

  A redheaded man pushed the doctor aside. “What’s the killer look like? Tall? Short?”

  Another man, this one with a big bushy beard, shone a lantern right in Rolf’s face. “Was it a boy who threw you down the well? A great big blond boy? Like a giant, wearing horse blankets?”

  “No. It was a man,” Rolf said. “Tall and trim. Seemed well dressed. With a thick blond mustache.”

  “That ain’t the kid I saw,” the bearded man answered.

  “He’s very tall. A handsome man, some would say.”

  Rolf knew these men would die if they caught up with Ketil. The Berserker would relish the chance to fight so many men at once. He would kill them, then brag endlessly about it to the Nytteson back home. But if Ketil was busy fighting off a posse, it might give Rolf the chance to get to Wolf Creek before he did.

  “Why did he do it?” the shopkeeper asked. “What could he have had against the Gerlingers?”

  “I don’t know,” Rolf lied. “I was visiting with them, they are old friends of my family from Germany, when the man appeared. Mr. Gerlinger was playing the accordion for us—”

  He broke off. He did not need to feign a shiver of horror as he remembered how they had been killed.

  The men were convinced. They began to speak of organizing and provisioning the posse. They had many questions for Rolf about which direction Ketil might have gone.

  “He did not seem the careful type,” Rolf told them. “I imagine he left a trail.”

  The members of the posse gathered themselves up and headed for the door. The doctor was among their number.

  Rolf stopped the shopkeeper.

  “I need to get to Wolf Creek,” he told the man.

  “You’ll want to catch the train to Helena; you can get a stage from there.”

  “Is there a train today?”

  The shopkeeper eyed the bandages running around Rolf’s chest to the padding on the back.

  “There’s a morning train and one in the afternoon. I guess you could catch it. But don’t you need to rest a mite? You been whipped pretty solid.”

  “I need to buy clothing. And I’m hungry,” he said. “But most of all, I must make the train.”

  He grasped the shopkeeper’s hands. The man nodded.

  Injured or not, Rolf had to hurry. He feared Ketil would kill the Berserker instead of recruiting her. And the siblings, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Wolf Creek was a busy, if lean-looking, town. The buildings were tall and skinny, as if dra
wn together against the wind that came down out of the mountains. Instead of a wide, flat thoroughfare, Main Street was pitted with rocks and gullies where the rain had washed away the soil.

  Now that they knew Knut was being hunted, Owen insisted they take more care. Hanne, Knut, and Sissel stayed in a pine wood, a mile southeast of town, while Owen and Stieg went in to try to find out where Uncle Håkon’s house was located.

  Wolf Creek was a mining town, built all in a rush ten years before, when placer deposits had been found up the creek. There had been gold, and some miners were still having success panning it out of the water.

  Owen and Stieg rode down the main street, searching for a general store, or perhaps a saloon, in which to make inquiries. It seemed like the only structure built to last was the jail. It was made of river rock and cement. The other buildings were clapboard, weathered near to silver. There was a three-story hotel and a school, a small one, where some children flocked in play around the building under the supervision of a prim-mouthed schoolteacher at the door.

  The miners they passed seemed flinty eyed and suspicious to Owen, but he reckoned that might be because he was now traveling with a wanted man. Perhaps even the most friendly town might seem hostile when you were on the lookout for it. The sky was an ominous gray, with clouds looming overhead. That didn’t help the impression.

  Owen nodded toward a building, the Wolf Creek Outfitter and General Stores. They dismounted and tied their horses at the hitching post that ran along the front of the building.

  Inside, they found it well stocked. There was everything to provision a small mining outfit, along with stores of dry goods and staples.

  The shopkeeper was sitting on a stool by the door, polishing the glass bell for an oil lamp with a flannel cloth.

  “Help you, gentlemen?” he asked.

  “We could use some flour and some sugar, first off,” Owen said. “Beans, too, if you got ’em.”

  Stieg met Owen’s eye and seemed to understand Owen’s thinking that they’d get better information out of the man once they’d made a purchase or two.

  The shopkeeper went behind the counter.

  “How much you want, say, a pound?”