The Prow Beast

EIGHTEEN

His breathing, as Bjaelfi took pains to tell us, was just a habit, for the fever had fired him so that his blood had boiled up into his thought-cage and destroyed his thinking entire. What was left sucked in air the way a deer kicks long after you have gralloched it.

It was a habit strong in him, for he took three days to be quit of it and, at the last, was open-mouthed and desperate as a fish. Ulf, his name was, called Amr by his oarmates, which meant Tub on account of his considerable belly. Well, it had been considerable, but in three days of vomit and leaching sweat he had melted like grease on a skillet, become a wraith, his face pocked red and white and pus yellow and his eyes gone white as boiled eggs.

Bjaelfi tied his mouth back up with a scrap of cloth and we sat back and stared; Ulf, the emptied Tub, first to die of the Red Plague and lying there with drooping hare-ears of cloth on top of his head, making him look as if he was being silly to amuse bairns.

‘They are coming again,’ roared a voice from outside the dim hut.

I heaved myself wearily up, took up the blood-gummed shaft of the bearded axe and looked at Bjaelfi.

‘Burn him,’ I said and he nodded. Then I lumbered out to war.

We first saw our enemy when they filtered out onto the soaked plain in front of the grod not long after we had panted our way into it and barred the gate; we made it easier for them to find us, for we burned the main hall, after tying bound cloths round our faces — for all the good it would do — and dragging all the scattered, half-chewed bodies there, where most of them already festered.

Their horsemen trotted up, spraying water up from the steaming ground, to be greeted by great black feathers of reeking smoke; close behind came foot soldiers in unbleached linen and only helmets and spears and round shields. Behind them came a knot of iron-clad horse soldiers, sporting lances with proud pennons and one huge banner with what appeared to be a wheel on it. Dark Eye said that was the mark of the Pol rulers, who had been wheelwrights until the favour of their god raised them up.

‘They will think we slaughtered all the folk of this place and burned some of it,’ Styrbjorn said bitterly. ‘Someone should tell them there is pest here and that we are doomed. That will send them running as far from this place as they can get.’

‘It would send you scampering,’ Alyosha replied, watching the enemy closely as they assembled — counting heads, as I was. ‘What they will do is keep a safe distance and shoot anyone who leaves with arrows. When we are all dead, they will burn it. The last thing these folk want is us running all over their land, spreading Red Plague.’

‘Better they do not know we have disease here,’ I said, loud enough for others to hear and spread the sense of it. ‘It will mean the reddest of red war and no-one will be able to throw down their weapons and be spared.’

Finn and I exchanged looks; we knew no-one would be spared anyway, once the talking had stopped.

‘I make it four hundreds, give or take a spear or two,’ Alyosha said, coming quietly to me. I had much the same; the rest of the men, grim and silent on the ramparts, knew only that the plain in front of the grod was thick with men who wanted to kill us.

‘Get them working,’ I said to Alyosha, ‘for busy hands mean less chance to think on matters. Send Abjorn to the river wall — there is a small gate in it, used by the fishermen, I am thinking. It may also be the only way to bring water in from the river unless you can find a well. We have small beer but not enough, so we will have to drink water in the end. Finn — since you can tally a little without having to take your boots off, find out what we have in stores. Slaughter the livestock if we cannot feed them, but leave the cows until last, for they at least provide milk.’

There was more — making arrows from what we could find, ripping out heavy balks of timber and finding all the heavy stones we could to drop on heads.

Hot oil, Crowbone told us with all the wisdom of his few years. Or heated gravel where there was no oil, he added and Finn patted him, as if he was a small dog, then went off, shaking his head and chuckling. It was left to Alyosha to patiently explain that flaming oil and red-hot stones were not the cleverest things to be dropping all over the wooden gate and walls of our fortress.

Randr Sterki came up to me then, badger-beard working as his jaw muscles clenched and unclenched.

‘Give us our weapons back and we will fight,’ he growled.

I looked at him and the men clustered behind him. They wanted their hands on hilt and haft, were eager — even desperate — to defend themselves, if no-one else.

‘We are in this leaking ship as one,’ I pointed out, more for the men behind than him. ‘Those dog-fuckers out there call us flax-heads, think we are all Saxlanders and will curl their lips at any man who crawls out to claim he can open the gate if only he is spared. They will kill him once he has served the purpose.’

Feet shifted at that and I knew I had them; Randr Sterki half-turned to his men, then turned back to me.

‘We will fight, until dead or victorious.’

It had been said in front of witnesses and was Oath enough, so I gave him my V-notched sword back, for I would not give him Jarl Brand’s own. He grinned, then drew it and stood, naked blade in hand and within striking distance of me, who had nothing in his hand but old filth and callouses.

‘If we survive, Bear Slayer,’ he said flatly, ‘there will be matters to discuss.’

I was sick of him and his matters, so I turned away, putting my back to him and the blade he held, though I felt the skin creep along my backbone as I did so.

‘I would not count on living out the rest of this day,’ I answered over my shoulder, going off to fetch Brand’s sword, ‘never mind having a cunning plan for tomorrow.’

When I was sliding the baldric over my head, Koll trotted up, followed by Yan Alf, whom I had set to guard him. The boy’s white-lashed eyes stared up into mine, sullen as a slate-blue sea and he wanted to know why I had stopped him from going near the monk.

‘He ran off with you,’ I answered, annoyed at this. ‘Is that not reason enough? Because of him we are here, a long way from home and…’

I stopped then, before the words ‘dying for the matter’ spat past my teeth; I did not want the boy — or anyone else — empty of hope.

‘He saved me,’ Koll persisted.

‘He has done killing in the night,’ I countered, ‘with some strange magic.’

I broke off and looked at Yan Alf, who shrugged.

‘Alyosha and Ospak stripped and searched him,’ the little man said. ‘The only way he could be more naked is if they flayed him. They found no weapon. Ospak guards him now and he has asked to help Bjaelfi with the sick.’

Very noble and Christ-like — but Alyosha would have turned the monk inside out rather than leave him as a threat to his charge, little Crowbone, and, if he had found no weapons…

Yet I did not trust Leo and said so.

‘Keep at arm’s length from that monk,’ I added and saw the hard set of Koll’s lip and, worse, the dull sadness in those pale eyes. I had told him of his mother’s death and he had taken it with no tears — and yet…

‘Did your father tell how to behave as a fostri?’ I persisted and he nodded reluctantly, then repeated the words all sons are told — obey and learn. I merely nodded at him, then had an idea and handed him Brand’s sword.

‘This belongs to your father and so to you. You are come early to it and it is likely too large and heavy for you to use, even if you knew how. One day Finn will show you the strokes of it — but for now you can guard it.’

The pale blue eyes widened and brightened like the sun had burst out on a summer sky. He took the sheathed weapon in both hands and turned, grinning to Yan Alf, before running off with it.

‘Keep him away from the monk,’ I said softly to Yan Alf as he passed me, chasing his charge. If he had an answer, I did not hear it and turned away to hunt out a seax or an axe for myself. The whole sick-slathered wyrd of it had come down to this tapestry woven by the Norns and the picture of it was clear enough — a cliff in front, wolves behind.

I would not survive it, whatever happened, for I was sure Odin had, finally, led me to the place where he would take the life I had offered him.

First, though, there were the dance-steps of the rite, beginning with horn blasts from them to attract our attention. I had seen this before, though from the other side, when we had arrived at the Khazar fortress of Sarkel with Sviatoslav, Prince of Kiev. Ten summers ago, I suddenly realised, climbing the ramp to the tower over the gate, where Finn and others waited. I had Dark Eye with me, for she was the only one who could talk to these Pols in their own tongue.

A knot of riders came slowly, ambling their horses across the wet grass and scrub to where the raised walkway led to the gate. One of them, accompanied by a single rider bearing the huge red flag with a spoked wheel worked in gold threads on it, came forward a few steps more.

He was splendid in gilded ringmail and a red cloak, his elaborately crested helmet nestled in the crook of one arm, allowing his braided black hair, weighted with fat silver rings, to swing on his shoulders. His beard was black and glossed with oil and it was clear he was someone of note, which Dark Eye confirmed.

‘Czcibor,’ she said softly. ‘Brother of King Dagomir, whom folk by-name Miezko as a joke, for it means “peace”. He makes it by fighting all who resist him. This Czcibor is the one who beat the Saxlanders at Cidini and took the Pols to the mouth of the Odra.’

I had thought Miezko meant ‘famous sword’, but then his enemies would have a different take on it and there was no more bitter enemy of the Pols than Dark Eye. When this Czcibor spoke, I wondered if I could even trust what she said — then scattered the thought, half-ashamed at it.

Dark Eye listened and then spoke back to him and turned to me; heads craned expectantly.

‘He says you should give in, for you cannot win. It is better if you submit. I would be careful of him, Jarl Orm, for he knows Norse well enough.’

She spoke in a guarded, level voice; I looked at Czcibor, who grinned.

‘Is this true — you know the Norse?’

‘Of course. My niece, Sigrith, is a queen in your lands.’

Styrbjorn suddenly thrust forward, eager as a bounding pup — if he had had a tail it would have shaken itself off.

‘You are Czcibor,’ he declared and the man, frowning at this breach of manners, nodded curtly.

‘Ah, well,’ Styrbjorn went on, ‘then we are related, after a fashion, for my uncle is married to your niece. I am Styrbjorn…’

Czcibor held up a hand, which was as good as a slap in the face to Styrbjorn. When he spoke, it was a slow, languid, serpent-hiss of sound, made worse by the mush-mess he made of the Norse.

‘Styrbjorn. Yes. I know of you. My niece sent word of it down the Odra.’

I saw Styrbjorn stiffen and pale at that, which he had not been expecting.

‘I shall have a stake cut especially for you,’ Czcibor went on. ‘And for the little monk who killed the woman Jasna. Perhaps I will make it the same one for you both.’

My stomach roiled and my knees started to twitch against the rough wood of the rampart stakes, where I had braced them. For a man with a name like a fire in a rainstorm he could summon up a mighty vision.

‘An interesting idea,’ I managed eventually. ‘I would enjoy watching it under other circumstances. But we are all comfortable here and our arses free from stakes and a lot more dry than yours will be, by and by.’

He cocked his head sideways a little, appraising me; I had made it clear that I knew his predicament — he could not surround the grod completely because of the swamps on three sides and the river the settlement was practically thrust into. His own camp was on a soaked flat offering little comfort and no chance to dig even the simplest of privy pits or earthwork defences that would not instantly fill with mud and water.

All he could do was attack and be done with the business as fast as possible, which was a hard option — but this was a man come fresh from victory and unmoved by such problems. He nodded politely, put on his splendid helm, dragged out a spear and, with a swift throw and a gallop off, hurled it over the ramparts as the signal that the bloody matter had commenced. It skittered on the hard ground behind me and a few men scattered, cursing the surprise of it.

‘That went well,’ Finn declared, grinning, then scowled and thumped Styrbjorn’s shoulder, making the youth stagger. ‘You nithing arse.’

Styrbjorn had no answer to it and slunk away while others who heard about his fawning attempt to wriggle over to safety jeered him.

And Dark Eye came to me, snuggling under my arm — which gained us both a couple of scowls from those who saw a sweetness they were not allowed — so that she could whisper softly.

‘He asked for me.’

I had guessed that and had made quiet warding signs to prevent him voicing it in Norse for all to hear; let the Oathsworn think they were sieged here for the settlement we slaughtered, for if they suspected Dark Eye was the cause, they would hurl her to them in an eyeblink.

Yet it nagged me, that thought, for there was a whiff of betrayal and oath-breaking in it. Worse, there was the thought that this was what the Sea-Finn’s drum had spoken of, so that defying it was standing up and spitting in Odin’s one eye. I thought I heard Einar’s slow, knowing chuckle as I turned away, whirling with mad thoughts of how to get folk out of these closing wolf-jaws.

Them, of course. Not me. I was only offering prayers to Frey and Thor and any other god I could think of to help convince AllFather to spare me long enough to see the crew away.

All the rest of that day we worked to improve our lot, comforted by the distant sound of axe-work in hidden trees; the Pols were making scaling ladders and would not attack before that was done.

Just as the dusk smoked in and we lit fires and torches, Finn came back from where he had been checking the watchers on the river wall; there were skin-boats on the river, crude and hastily made, carrying one man to row and one man to shoot.

‘The ground between the river and the wall is sodden, knee-deep at least,’ he added. ‘It will take four, perhaps five days for the water to seep away back to the river and even then a man will be hard put to walk through it without sinking to the cods.’

We ate together, waving off clouds of insects under the awning of the sail, for no-one wanted to be inside one of the houses, as if the air was thicker with rot there than elsewhere. I made a Thing of it, once they were licking their horn spoons clean.

To get away we would have to cross the bog down to the river, go in quietly, so as not to annoy the watchers in boats, then drift downstream a way to safety. Those who could not swim should fill bladders with air to stay afloat — there were sheep and goats enough for it — and we could try this when the bog had dried out, in five days.

By then we would be ankle-deep in blood, which I did not mention, and there would have to be men on the ramparts to let the others escape, which I did.

‘I will be one,’ I said, hoping my voice would not crack like my courage at the thought. ‘It would be helpful to have a few more, but I do not demand this.’

‘I will stay,’ said Crowbone at once and Koll piped up bravely on his heels. I saw Alyosha stiffen at that, so I shook my head.

‘Not this time, little Olaf,’ I said to Crowbone. ‘I need you to make sure Koll Brandsson gets back to his father.’

‘I will stay,’ Koll shrilled.

‘You will obey your foster-father,’ growled Finn, ‘whose duty it is to keep you safe.’

The white head drooped. Crowbone paused a moment, then nodded at me; from the corner of my eye, I caught Alyosha’s relief.

‘I will be at your shieldless side,’ Finn declared and I acknowledged it; one by one, men stood up and were counted, each louder than the last and each into cheers louder than the one before. At the edge of them, Randr Sterki glowered in silence, offering nothing.

In the end, I had to turn men down, keeping ten only — Abjorn, Ospak, Finnlaith, Murrough, Finn, Rovald, Rorik Stari, Kaelbjorn Rog, Myrkjartan and Uddolf. We broke out a barrel of the fiery spirit that passed for drink in this part of the world and men fell to flyting each other with boasts of what they would do in the morning.

Later, as the fire collapsed to showers of sparks and glowing embers, Finn and I walked the guardposts, pausing in the tower over the gate to stare out at the field of red, flickering blooms which marked the camp of our enemy.

Beyond it, the night was silver and grey, soaked with the scent of a rain-wind, fresh-cut wood and torn earth; the moon, blurred and pale, darted from cloud to cloud, as if trying to hide from the all-devouring wolf which chased her.

‘Will you tell them about the girl?’ Finn growled and I felt neither alarm nor surprise; Finn was no fool.

‘They would hand her over,’ I answered flatly and he nodded.

‘Aye — was this not what the Sea-Finn’s drum meant? Can you stand against it? Defy that wyrd?’

I must and hoped he would not ask me the why of it, for I had no answer. Every time I thought of it, all I saw were her great, seal eyes.

He nodded again when I howked all this out.

‘Is she so worth it then, that everyone here has to die? Even if both you and she get away, I am thinking Thorgunna will not be happy to see a second wife come into her home. I am thinking also that the Mazur girl is not the sort to be settled with being a second wife. If anyone makes it out of here at all — you are under the eye of Odin, after all.’

I had churned this to rancid butter night after night, after every furtive, frantic coupling we had stolen and had no answer for him.

‘Tell Red Njal to get her away to safety when the time comes,’ was all I could manage. ‘Tell him to take her back to Hestreng. I charge him with that and taking Koll home.’

Finn nodded, a twist of a smile on his face. ‘Aye — I wondered why you did not include Njal in your hopeless hird,’ he answered. ‘So did he — this will go some way to calming him for it.’

There was a noise and a figure that turned us; she came up the ladder to the tower, wrapped in her too-large cloak and it was clear she had heard us talk. Her eyes had vanished in the dark so that her face, pale and seemingly pitted with two large holes, looked like a savage mask.

‘You will not take me home, then, Jarl Orm?’

I shook my head. It was too far and I would not be there to do it myself, for my wyrd was on me. The best I could offer was safety at Hestreng.

‘In time,’ I added, limping the words out, ‘it may be that you could be taken back to your people. Word can certainly be sent to your father that you are no longer held by his enemies.’

She nodded and paused, head raised as if sniffing the wind.

‘My father is called, in our tongue, Hard-Mouth,’ she said. ‘He is well-named and has a hand to match. I have two brothers and he whipped them every day from when they were old enough to walk. Every morning, before they ate, so they would know what pain was before pleasure and that such was our lot in life as Mazurs.’

She paused; a dog fox screamed somewhere far away.

‘But he called me his little white flower and it was the hardest thing he did, handing me over to the Pols. He had no choice and wept. I had never seen my father shed a tear.’

Again she paused and no-one offered words to fill the silence.

‘When he finds I am no longer held by the enemy,’ she went on, stirring suddenly, ‘he will raise up his warriors and fall on the Pols. They will slaughter him, for they are much stronger now. It will take them time, for my father is skilful and folk will follow him. They will run and fight and run again — but, in the end, they will submit, when all the young men are dead. Bairns and women and old heads will die, too. The Mazur will be rubbed out, vanished like ripples on water.’

It was as bleak as an ice-field, that vision and I felt Finn shiver next to me. Then she turned and smiled whitely in the dark of her face.

‘I have prepared a hut for us,’ she said brightly. ‘It does not matter to me whether the red sickness crawled in it. Does it bother you?’

I could only shake my head and she wraithed down the ladder and was gone. Finn looked at me.

‘Do not ask what that meant,’ I told him, ‘for up here I am as much in the dark as you.’

Later still, weary as I was, I went to find Koll and knew just where he would be. The door of the hut was open, spilling out yellow light and letting in cool air, for here Bjaelfi moved among the sick, murmuring softly.

The monk was there, wiping the neck and chest of a man, while Koll sat some way back from him, his father’s sword across his knees. Yan Alf crouched like a patient hound nearby and gave me a despairing look and a shrug when I came in, as if to say ‘what can I do?’

Koll leaped up when he saw me and Leo turned his head, a twist of a smile on his face.

‘I obey,’ Koll said and thrust out the sheathed sword as far as he could before the weight dragged it to the beaten-earth floor with a clunk. ‘I am at arm’s length.’

‘So you are,’ I said. ‘I came to make sure you had a sensible place to sleep.’

‘This is sensible,’ he answered uncertainly and Leo chuckled as I jerked my head at Yan Alf, who rose and propelled the boy outside.

‘Do you believe I mean him harm?’ the monk asked. I did not know for sure, but I knew he meant him no good and that, if he was a counter in the game, then he was my counter. Leo shrugged when I told him this.

‘It is, then, a matter of bargaining,’ he said and smiled. ‘You are, after all, a trader as well as a slayer of white bears and a finder of treasure.’

‘You are short of items to trade,’ I answered.

‘I have the boy,’ he replied and I cocked my head and told him it was the other way round.

‘You seem to wish to die here,’ he said, as lightly as if passing judgement on the cut of my cloak, or the state of my shoes. ‘What will happen to your men? To the boy?’

I had not thought beyond them drifting to safety and saw the mistake. Leo wiped the man’s fat neck with one hand, the other resting comfortably at his side. The sick man’s belly trembled as he breathed, low and rasping.

‘The quickest way to safety is through the Bulgar lands,’ Leo said. ‘I am more of the Emperor’s envoy there. In the Great City, I can provide help and aid for those who survive.’

He turned his face, less moon and more gaunt these days; life had melted some of the sleek off him.

‘I can ensure the boy is returned to his father from the Great City.’

‘For a price,’ I spat back bitterly. Leo waved his free hand, then settled it, like a small moth, lightly back on his leg.

‘What do you care — you are dead?’ he replied, crow-harsh in the dim; I heard Bjaelfi grunt at that.

‘I will return the boy, unharmed to this father,’ he went on. ‘I will make sure Jarl Brand knows that this is because of what you have done, so that you fulfil whatever vow you made. I know how you people value such vows. If there are other agreements made — what of it? The boy is still safe and your fame is safer still.’

This last was sneered out, as if it held no value at all — which, him being steeped in the Great City’s way of doing things, was accurate enough. Yet there was merit in this and he saw me pause, knew he had gaffed me with it.

‘What is the price?’ I demanded and he waved his free hand again.

‘Little enough — freedom of movement. When the time comes, let your men know you trust me to guide them, so they will take pains to help both me and the boy.’

I pondered it.

‘Of course,’ he went on smoothly, ‘it also means you cannot carry out your plan to kill me when the enemy breaks down the gate.’

He turned his bland smile on me. ‘That was your plan, was it not?’

It was not, exactly. I had planned to leave him tethered for the Pols to find and stake him for the red murder of Jasna and the threat to Queen Sigrith. I had the satisfaction of seeing him blink; I could feel his hole pucker from where I stood and laughed.

‘How was that killing done?’ I asked. He recovered and shifted wearily, then paused in his endless wiping of the man’s head and neck.

‘One day,’ he replied slowly, ‘you may profit from the knowing.’

Then he smiled his bland smile. ‘Of course,’ he went on smoothly, putting aside the cloth and lifting the man’s limp, slicked arm up high, ‘all this is moot. This one is called Tub, I believe. He is leaking a little and he is the first, I think. It may be that no-one goes home without God’s mercy.’

I stared at the accusing Red Plague pus-spots crawling down the arms and up the neck of Tub and heard Bjaelfi curse as I left.

In the morning, all our enemies were at the gates.

There was no skilled planning; Czcibor used his foot soldiers like a club and they came piling across the narrow causeway, fanning out under the looming cliff of earthwork and timber ramparts, throwing up makeshift ladders.

We had one good bow — Kuritsa’s — and a few more hunting ones we had found, but the horsemen had been dismounted and launched great skeins of shafts to keep our heads down, so we could do little but lob heavy stones from cover.

When the Pol foot soldiers, in their stained oatmeal tunics, finally got to the lip of the timbers, their archers had to stop firing; then we rose up and the slaughter started.

That first morning, I plunged into the maw of it, sick and screaming with fear, sure that this was where Odin swept me up and trying to make it quick.

I kicked the head of the first man who appeared, open-mouthed and gasping, so that he shrieked and went backwards. I cut down at the ladder, hooked the splintering top rung with the beard of my axe and then ran, elbowing my own men out of the way and hauling the ladder sideways; men spilled off it, flailing as they fell.

Some others had made the top rampart anyway and I plunged towards them, took a slice on the shaft of the axe, where metal strips had been fitted to reinforce the wood. In the same move, I cut up and under, splintering his ribs, popping his lungs out so that he gasped and reeled away.

Another came at me, waving a spear two-handed, so I reversed the axe and batted him off with the shaft, my left hand close up under the head — then gripped the spear with my free hand, pushed it to one side and sliced the axe across his throat like a knife.

The blood sprang out, black and reeking of hot iron, and he fell, half-dragging me as he did so, so that I staggered. Something spanged off my helmet; a great white light burst in my head and I felt the rough wood of the walkway splinter into my knees.

Then there was cursing and grunts and a hand hauled me away; when I could see, Red Njal was standing over me, his own axe up and dripping.

‘You will get yourself killed with such tricks,’ he chided, then hurled himself forward, now that I was climbing to my feet.

Between us we pitched the struggling men back over the ramparts; no sooner had the heels of the last one vanished than two arrows whunked into the wood and we dived behind the timbers, panting and sweating, to listen to the drumming of others, flocking in like crows on offal. Crazily, I was reminded of rain on the canvas awning on the deck of the Fjord Elk, though I could not remember which Fjord Elk that had been.

‘Five days,’ Red Njal said and spat, though there was little wet in his mouth, I saw. I was thinking the same thing — these would be five long days.

The rest of it is a dull, splintered memory, like a tapestry shredded by a madman. I am certain sure that it was on the day we tied up Tub’s mouth that we suffered a moon-howling loss that drove us a little mad.

It was the same as any other attack, though the ramparts by now were scarred, the timber points black and soaked with old gore, the walkway both sticky and slick. They came piling up over their own dead, threw up the ladders and did what they had been doing for what seemed years.

And we stood, we three, last of the band of old brothers, struggling and slipping and sweating and cursing, while Uddolf and Kaelbjorn Rog and others fought their own battles a little way away, for we were veil-thin on the rampart now.

Red Njal set himself behind his shield, took a deep, weary breath and shook himself, like a dog coming out of water.

‘Fear the reckoning of those you have wronged,’ he muttered, moving forward. ‘My granny said it, so it must…’

The spear came out of nowhere, a vicious stab from the first man up a ladder we had not seen. It caught Red Njal under the arm, right in the armpit, so that he grunted with the shock of it and jerked back. It had hooked and stuck and, even as we watched, the man who owned it fell backwards, ladder and all, as Finn smashed The Godi into his chest. Fixed to the spear, like a fish on a gaff, Red Njal was hauled over the rampart, a silent slither of ragged mail and leather.

I was stunned; it was the roof collapsing, the earth vanishing beneath my feet. I could not move for the sick horror of it — but Finn screamed, skeins of mad drool spilling down his beard and launched himself at the pack on the walkway, hacking and slashing.

I roused myself, moving as if I was in the Other, walking in a mist and slowed. Twice, I know, I held his back, stopped the crash of a blade on him, but I only came into the Now of matters when he was pounding the head of the last man on the walkway, screaming at him.

‘What is it called?’ he shrieked. Slam. Slam. ‘This place? What is it called?’

The man, leaking blood from his eyes and ears and nose and mouth, spattered out a word, so that Finn was satisfied enough to haul him up under the armpits and heave him over the rampart.

We huddled in the lee of the black-stained points, sitting in the viscous stink and staring at each other, while the arrows wheeked and whirred and shunked into the wood. Eventually, Finn wiped one bloody hand across his bloody beard.

‘Needzee,’ he said slowly and my blank eyes were question enough.

‘Name of this place,’ he explained. ‘I was thinking we should know where we are dying.’

That night, he and Kaelbjorn Rog and Ospak flitted down the rampart on knotted ropes, but it was dark and they dared not show any lights, so they could not find Red Njal in the heap, some still groaning, at the foot of our stockade.

His death was a rune-mark on matters coming to an end.

The end came two days later, when eighteen of us were rolling with sweat and babbling and twenty more had died, three from the plague. Almost everyone else was wounded in some way.

Worst of all, Koll was sick. The red and white spots started under his armpit and down his thighs in the morning and then erupted on the pale circles of his cheeks. By nightfall he looked as if someone had thrown a handful of yellow corn that had stuck to his face, each one a pustule that festered and stank.

The monk sat with him, in between tending the others, while Bjaelfi, half-staggering with weariness, moved back and forth, Dark Eye with him like a shadow, answering a whimper here, a cry there.

In the fetid, blood-stinking dark, we gathered round the fire, streaked and stained and long since too weary to wash. My braids were gummed with old blood and other, even worse, spills from the dead and my clothing stained and ripped; no-one was any better.

We carried Koll to the fire; no-one minded, for there was no escape from the pest and if the Norns wove that red thread into your life, that was it. Only Styrbjorn scowled, thinking that distance meant more safety.

Behind us, torches burned at the raised wooden platform that marked the centre of the village — Needzee, Finn had called it, but Dark Eye had put him right on that. The luckless man had gasped out ‘nigdzie’ as Finn pounded his head to ruin, screaming to know what the name of this place was that we were all dying for, the place where Red Njal had gone to meet his granny.

Nowhere, the man had said in his own tongue and Finn had thrown back his head and bellowed with cracked laughter when Dark Eye told him that.

Now Dark Eye lit torches and knelt on the wooden platform, praying to her four-faced god, while the shadows flicked and men, too tired even to eat or talk, huddled in a sort of stupor, heads bowed, watching the smoke writhe. A pot steamed on an iron tripod and the men lay in a litter of helms and weapons, slumped with shields as backrests, crusted ringmail puddled like old snakeskins at their feet.

When Dark Eye wraithed herself back to the fire, a few heads lifted and dull eyes took her in. Styrbjorn, always ready with his mouth, curled his lip.

‘Praying for rescue?’ he asked.

‘Only the fearful pray for rescue,’ she replied, pooling herself into a comfortable squat. Styrbjorn stirred uncomfortably, for everyone could see that promised stake up the arse occupied most of his waking hours.

‘The man who says he is not afraid in this matter is a liar,’ he responded.

‘Tell Finn that,’ Uddolf chuckled harshly. ‘He is well-known for having no fear.’

‘Perhaps he can tell you the secret of it, Styrbjorn,’ Onund added with his usual bear grunt. ‘Then we will be quit of your whine.’

‘As to that,’ Finn said softly. ‘Since we are all about to look our gods in the face, it may be that you want to know the secret of having no fear.’

Now men were stirring with interest, me among them.

‘When I was young,’ he began, ‘I did matters which were not agreeable to certain men in Skane and, when they caught me, there was no Thing on it, no outlawing. Justice was rougher in those days and none rougher than Halfidi. He was as white-haired as any kindly uncle and as black-bowelled as a draugr. Slatur, men called him.’

There were chuckles at such a fine by-name — Slatur was a dish made by stitching pungently strong black-blood sausage into a lamb’s white stomach.

‘They kicked and beat me,’ Finn went on, ‘and starved me for a week, which was to be expected. Each day Halfidi, or one of his sons, would dish out the meat of a whipping and take delight in telling me when I would hang. At the end of that week, they took me to the top of the cliff they used, where a rope was fastened to an iron ring. They put the other end round my neck and tied a cloth round my eyes. Then they spun me and pushed me to walking, so that I did not know where the cliff edge was.’

Men grunted with the cruel power that vision brought.

‘Three days they did this,’ Finn said, soft, lost in the dream of it. ‘On the second day the shite was running down my leg and I was babbling promises not even a god could keep if they would let me go. On the third day I did the same, only for them to let me see.’

He stopped. Men waited; the fire flared a little in a wet night wind, throwing up a whirl of sparks.

‘On the fourth day, they were careless with the bindings and I worked one hand free, so that when they came to prodding and pushing, I tore the cloth from my eyes. There were eight of them, who all saw I had one hand free and so they came at me with spears.’

He paused, a long time this time, until Styrbjorn — that child would never learn when to put his tongue between his teeth — demanded to know what happened next.

‘I went over the edge,’ said Finn. All breathing stopped at the dizzying vision of that, of what it had taken to do it.

‘And died, of course,’ sneered Styrbjorn. ‘I heard this tale when I was toddling.’

‘I did not die. I went over the edge and, when I hit the end of that bast rope it snapped clean through. I should have had my neck cracked, but had my free hand taking a deal of the strain, so I was spared that. I hit the sea and got through that, too.’

Men were silent, for such a matter was a clear intervention of the hand of some god. Frey, suggested one. Odin himself, another thought and those who favoured Slav gods offered their own thoughts on the matter.

‘I have had no fear since,’ Finn said. ‘It was snapped from me by that bast rope. Nothing and no-one since has made me drip shite down my leg through terror.’

‘That is why you did not want that Vislan hanged,’ I said, suddenly seeing it and Finn admitted it.

‘And why you follow the prow beast,’ Kaelbjorn Rog added. ‘Since you cannot return to Skane while Halfidi and his sons are waiting.’

Finn said nothing.

‘They are not,’ I said softly, staring at him, rich with sudden knowing. ‘But you can still never go back, can you, Finn Horsehead?’

Finn stared back at me, black eyes dead as old coals. ‘I went to their hall in the night. That same night. I barred all the doors and fired it. No-one got out.’

It might have been the wind, or the trailing finger of that horror, but men shivered. The burning of a hall full of his own kind was the worst act a Northman could do and he was never forgiven for it.

It was cold, that burning revenge, for there were women and weans in it. It came to me then that humping a dead woman on the body of a dying ox was neither here nor there for a man such as Finn. I had been wrong, telling Brother John bitterly that I was leading the charge into his Abyss, for no matter how hard I ran down that dark, steep way, Finn would always be ahead of me.

‘Heya,’ growled Rovald. ‘That was a harsh tale — what did you do that so annoyed this Halfidi?’

We expected robbery, dire murder or killing his ma — or all of them, after what we had just learned. Finn stared at the fire, leaned forward and stirred the cauldron.

‘I fished his river,’ he answered. ‘Fished it once by moonlight for the salmon in it. He was not even sure it was me that one of his men saw.’

No-one spoke for a long time after that — then Onund suddenly leaped sideways with a curse and lashed out. Folk sprang up, hands on weapons and Onund looked at them back and forth for a moment, then grunted sheepishly.

‘Rat,’ he said. ‘Ran over my hand. I hate rats. They come out for the raven’s leavings.’

Crowbone’s new voice was still more of a clear bell than others and heads lifted when it spoke.

‘Pity the rat,’ he said. ‘It was not always as you see it now.’

He shifted his face forwards, to have it dyed by embers. His odd eyes were glinting glass chips.

‘In the beginning of the world,’ he said. ‘When Odin was young and still had both eyes and so was more foolish than now, he was more kind-hearted. So much so that he did not like to see folk die. So one day he sent for Hugin, Thought, who was his favourite messenger from Asgard to men. He told that raven to go out into the world and tell all people that, whenever anyone died, the body was to be placed on a bier, surrounded by all the things precious to it in life and then freshly-burned oak wood ashes were to be thrown over it. Left like that on the ground, in half a day, it would be brought back to life.’

‘A useful thing to know,’ Styrbjorn announced. ‘Find some oak ash and we will have our own army round these parts by tomorrow’s rising meal.’

‘Not now,’ Crowbone announced sorrowfully. ‘When Hugin had flown for half a day he began to get tired and hungry, so when he spotted a dead sheep he was on it like a black arrow. He sucked out the eyes and shredded the tongue and made a meal of it. Then went to sleep, entirely forgetting the message which had been given him to deliver.

‘After a time,’ Crowbone went on, looking round the rapt, droop-lipped faces, ‘when the raven did not return, Odin called for the smallest of his creatures — the rat. It was not a skulker in sewage and darkness then, but a fine-furred beast, even if he had no discernible use other than sleeping. Odin, in his foolishness, sought to raise the rat in life and sent him out with the same message.’

‘Odin sounds very much like every king I have ever heard of,’ Onund Hnufa rumbled, ‘while his rat reminds me of every royal messenger I have ever seen.’

The laughter was dutiful, but so weak it dribbled out like drool from a sleeping mouth and scarcely made Crowbone pause.

‘The rat was, as you say, a poor messenger,’ he went on. ‘He fell asleep, went here, went there — and, though he eventually remembered the message, forgot what it was exactly; so as he went about among the people he told them that Odin had said that, whenever anyone died, they should be set on an oak bier, surrounded by all their prize possessions and burned to ash. In half-a-day, they would be brought back to life.’

Crowbone stopped and spread his hands wide.

‘Well — by the time Hugin woke up and remembered he had a message, it was too late. He flew around furiously yelling at people to stop setting fire to their dead and telling them of the message Odin had given him — but folk said they already had a message and it was all too late.’

‘And so,’ Crowbone said, ‘the Odin dead are always burned to this day; the god in a fury rescinded the secret of resurrection and went off to find the sort of wisdom that would stop him making any more mistakes like that.

‘Now no-one trusts a raven when it speaks — and the rat is hated for the false message he brought.’

Folk shifted slightly as the tale came to an end; Rovald shook a mournful head.

‘Think of that,’ he said, nudging his neighbour, who happened to be Styrbjorn. ‘If the raven had not stopped to eat — folk would all still be alive.’

‘Blame the dead sheep for dying, then,’ snarled Styrbjorn.

‘Or having tasty eyes,’ added Ospak moodily.

Koll stirred and moaned, came awake into his nightmare.

‘Moonlight,’ he said and a few folk looked up; like a pale silver coin, it seemed to drift across the sky between clouds.

‘Rain on the wind,’ muttered Thorbrand.

‘This place is famous for it,’ Ospak growled and that raised a weak chuckle or two.

‘The same moon,’ Koll whispered, ‘shines on my home.’

It was a link, right enough and the tug of it brought every head up briefly. Styrbjorn wiped his mouth, gone dry with the thoughts that flitted nakedly over his face — home was there, under that silver coin in the sky and just as unreachable. He would die here. We would all die here.

‘Tell me of your home,’ the monk asked gently and Koll tried, in his shadow of a whisper, a thread of sound that stitched all our hearts. Of running barefoot on the strand’s edge. Hunting gull eggs. Playing with his dog. Fishing. A bairn’s things that, to these hard raiding men, were as far removed as that same moon — yet close enough to be remembered, to make them blink with the sudden rush of it. A man grunted almost in pain as Koll lisped about sliding on the frozen river on goat-bone skates. Then the boy’s voice faded — mercifully — to sleep.

‘What of your own home, monk?’ I harshed out, eager to be rid of the pangs of Koll’s memories, sure that tales of Miklagard would be more diverting, since most of the men here had never been to it more than once and that only briefly.

‘The city walls rise like cliffs,’ Leo said obligingly, ‘and the towers and domes blaze with gold. In the morning, a mist hangs over the roofs, there is smoke and ships…’

He stopped and I was surprised to see his eyes bright. Murrough shifted his big frame and coughed, almost apologetically.

‘I have heard they have women of great beauty there,’ he grunted, ‘but veiled, like the Mussulmen women. I thought you were all Christ believers in Miklagard?’

‘Veiled, unveiled, beauteous and plain as a cow’s behind,’ Leo answered with a small smile. ‘All manner of women — but you are asking the wrong man, since they do not bother me. I am a priest of Christ, after all.’

‘I had heard this,’ Randr Sterki answered, frowning. ‘It is a great wonder to me that a man can give up women for his god.’

‘It is a great wonder to me that a god would ask it,’ added Onund and men laughed now. I relaxed; this was better. Even Randr Sterki seemed to have covered the sharp edge of himself.

‘Worse than that,’ Finn growled, ‘these Christ folk say you should not fight.’

‘Yet they do it, all the same,’ Myrkjartan pointed out. ‘For these Pols we are killing are Christ men, or so I have been told — and there is no greater army than the one of the Great City itself, yet they are all Christ followers.’

Leo smiled indulgently.

‘They are told not to kill,’ Murrough corrected, ‘according to all the canting Christ priests of my land. Perhaps it is different in the Great City. I have heard they follow the same Christ, but in a different way.’

‘The rule,’ Leo said slowly, picking his words like a hen does seed, ‘is that you should not kill. A commandment, we call it.’

‘There you are, then,’ Finn muttered disgustedly. ‘The Christ priests command the army not to kill and the chiefs command the opposite. It is a marvel that anything is done.’

Leo smiled his gentle smile. ‘Actually, the original gospel commanded us not to murder, which is a little different and not too far from what you northers believe.’

There were nods and thinking-frowns over that one.

‘This is what happens when such matters are written,’ Ospak declared, shaking his head and everyone was silent, remembering Red Njal.

‘Then confusion will be king,’ Leo answered, ‘for the Mussulmen have some similar rules written down in their holy works.’

‘Are you Mussulman, then?’ asked Crowbone, knitting his brows together. Leo shook his head and his smile never wavered; another priest of Christ would have been outraged.

‘I wonder only,’ Crowbone said, ‘because I met a Mussulman once and he had sworn off women. He ate like you did, too, with one hand only.’

He looked at me when he said it, but just then Finn leaned forward, sniffed the pot, lifted the ladle and tasted it. Then he fished out his little bone container of emperor salt and poured generous whiteness into it.

‘Salt,’ he declared, sitting back. ‘A man should eat as much salt as he can. It cleans the blood.’

There was silence, while the fire crackled and the cauldron bubbled and men sat slathered and crusted with other men’s salt-cleaned blood and tried not think about it. Then Koll woke and managed to whisper out to Finn, asking him what he missed of his home.

Finn was silent and stared once out at the dark ramparts where our guards huddled and watched; I thought his head was back in Hestreng, was full of thoughts of Thordis and Hroald, his son.

I should have known. Thordis and he would never trade vows and Hroald was a boy ignored as much as acknowledged; Finn showed the truth of it all when he stretched out one long arm and pointed to where Onund’s elk carving perched on the gate tower, slanted slightly, but still upright and proud, a symbol that the Oathsworn were here and not leaving in any hurry.

‘I am home,’ he growled.