Wolfsangel

34

Vali was thinking even as he fell against the boards. They had one free wolfman and four less deadly but still unencumbered hands. It was an unenviable position to be in against Bodvar Bjarki and his crew, but if they allowed themselves to be tied up or otherwise immobilised, they were done for.

Bragi stood cursing beside his upended barrel. He was moving like an old man waking after a long sleep. The wolfman was nowhere to be seen. Veles was wearing a smile that looked as if it had been cut into his face with a knife, shrugging as if asking for understanding. Vali felt angry and betrayed. He had looked up to the man, wished he was his father. Not Authun, Haarik nor even Forkbeard would have stooped to such a deceit.

‘Tie them!’ said Bodvar. A man came forward with a rope.

Time seemed to slow. One of Bodvar Bjarki’s men peered into the wolfman’s barrel as Vali heard Bragi come to the same conclusion he had, in the warrior’s more straightforward manner.

‘Bollocks to that!’ Bragi took a stiff step forward and cut off the head of the rope man. Bragi had his sword, thought Vali. Unbelievably, he had got his sword into his barrel.

There was a noise halfway between a vomit and a scream from Vali’s left and a guttural, crunching sound. The man looking for Feileg had found him.

Bodvar Bjarki didn’t have his weapon out, but almost before the head of his crewman had hit the bottom of the boat he stepped forward and delivered a blow with his fist. Bragi flopped to the boards as though he’d had all the bones knocked out of him. Then Vali saw the giant coming for him. He tried to dodge but Bodvar Bjarki didn’t just have the size and strength of a bear, he had the speed of one. He picked Vali up by an arm and a leg and smashed him down.

Vali fell badly, smacking his shoulder, but he quickly regained his feet. Bjarki was bearing down on him again.

The prince saw the realities of the situation in an instant. He was on his way to an enemy — Forkbeard or Haarik, it didn’t matter. He was valuable goods. Bjarki lunged for him but he rolled away and ran for the stern of the ship. He put his foot on the rail and turned to face the berserk.

‘Call off your men or I will-’

He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. Bjarki leaped at him. Vali had no choice: he jumped over the side. He heard the berserk curse as he missed Vali by a fingernail.

The cold rushed at Vali, crushing the breath from him. He gulped saltwater and was gripped by terror. His time in the mire had seeped into him and he now had a terrible dread of drowning. He had to fight to calm himself, to allow himself to swim as he could instead of panicking in the water. It wasn’t easy. His limbs were cramped from the barrel, but a flood of fear washed much of the stiffness away and he began to swim.

The swell meant that sometimes the boat was the height of two men above him, sometimes two below. It was coming about, side on to him. As the water lifted him, he concentrated to clear his mind and he saw it was a snekke, not as sleek or as quick as a drakkar but it could have twenty pairs of oars and maybe even carry a relief crew. They couldn’t fight that many but he did have one bargaining counter. He was wondering if he would even get to use it when he heard a voice shout from the ship.

‘Get back on the boat, goat brains!’ It was Bjarki, throwing him a rope. It hit the water next to him, but he didn’t take it even though he desperately wanted to.

He screamed as loud as he could, ‘Not until I have your oath you will not try to tie us or kill us.’

‘You’re in no position to ask for oaths!’

‘Yes, I am,’ shouted Vali. ‘If I drown, where is your ransom? ’

‘Drown then!’ Bjarki went to turn away but Veles appeared beside him. For a few moments Vali lost sight of them, then the berserk was calling to him again: ‘You have my oath, as you requested!’

‘And you’ll kill any man who does try to tie me or my friends while we are on your ship.’

Vali couldn’t be sure he saw Veles shrug, but he thought he did.

‘You’ve learned something of bargaining, prince!’ shouted the merchant.

‘Your oath. No hand raised against me or my friends.’

‘That too!’ shouted Bjarki.

The cold shot painful spasms into Vali’s limbs and he had to concentrate very hard to make his frozen hands take the rope. Then he was being pulled in and up over the side. Bragi sat where he had fallen, blinking and holding his jaw. Feileg was in a snarling stand-off with three spearmen.

Bjarki came forward and said in a low, almost confidential voice, ‘You’ve got your bargain, prince. You wouldn’t have died anyway, none of you. The old boy’s part of the deal and I intend to save your wolfman for where people can see me kill him.’

‘Where are we going?’ said Vali.

‘Back to Forkbeard,’ said the berserk. ‘You are the price of my freedom — that and a good whack of compensation.’

‘It was dishonourable to swear to that,’ said Bragi.

‘I’m meant for death in battle,’ said Bjarki, ‘not at the end of a rope.’

‘The king is entitled to compensation for any ransom he has to pay,’ said Veles. ‘And it will be a good one, because this is a prisoner of Hemming, king of the Danes.’

‘We escaped,’ said Vali.

‘Do you really think so,’ said Veles, ‘or was that for the benefit of spies? This way Hemming gets to sell you to Forkbeard; everyone else thinks you went there under your own steam. A neat solution, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I will kill you, Veles,’ said Vali, ‘be assured of that.’

The merchant shrugged. ‘I think you are suffering from shock at your own stupidity. Don’t blame me, blame yourself. I am a merchant and a fixer. I buy and sell things according to their worth. You gave yourself to me when you came to Haithabyr unprotected.’

‘You were my friend,’ said Vali.

The merchant snorted. ‘I had enough of the friendship of your peoples when you burned my home in Reric,’ he said.

Bjarki butted in. ‘Do I have to kill him, or are you going to tell him to behave himself?’ he said, nodding towards Bragi, who was getting to his feet. ‘He’s part of the prize so it’d be a shame to lose him.’

Vali gestured for Bragi to be calm.

‘You have a sudden concern for profit,’ said Vali. ‘Has this merchant infected your thinking?’

The berserk spat. ‘I have none,’ he said. ‘As long as I can eat and stay dry then riches don’t concern me. “Cattle die, kindred die, but I know one thing that never dies, the glory of the great deed.” Does not the Lord Odin tell us this? My prize is renown and the fulfilment of oaths, which is why, when we come to dry land, I shall kill your wolfman. He is a mighty warrior and the man who kills him will be praised down the centuries.’

‘I am not interested in the wolfman.’

‘So what are you interested in? That girl? Forget her. Haarik has given her to the Whale People for his son.’

‘What do you mean?’

Bjarki looked at him and laughed. ‘I mean she is Domen’s bride by now.’

‘Speak plainly.’

‘The Whale Men will have used her for their magic. But why should I tell you any more? My oath concerns keeping you from harm while you are on this boat; it has nothing to do with your peace of mind.’

‘If you can find her you’ll be well rewarded,’ said Vali, already knowing the berserk’s answer.

‘Where’s the fame in that?’ said Bjarki and turned away.

Vali felt a strange exhilaration. This was the first real information he’d had on Adisla. He felt closer to her just hearing it. He looked around the ship. He saw some faces he recognised, but the rest were unknown to him. There were a couple of berserks, stripped to the waist in the hot day, their tattoos so thick that they seemed almost like fur. There were some warriors who looked like men of the Groa river, ten days from Hordaland on foot. They wore the distinctive plaited beards of those people. So Forkbeard was using mercenaries. Was he preparing for war? Or was he just keeping his own men at home to defend his lands while using hired warriors to settle his scores?

The River Men were not happy, Vali could see. Bragi and Feileg had killed their friends and only fear of Bodvar Bjarki kept them from revenge. As it was, they glowered at the pair, muttering threats under their breath but keeping their distance. Bragi was unperturbed and met their gaze with a soft smile that told them he was ready any time they wanted to try their luck.

Vali went to the back of the ship and sat with him.

‘Well?’

‘I don’t know. Seems we’re safe for the short term.’

‘I meant, how are you?’ said Vali. ‘That was quite a smack he gave you.’

‘I lost a couple of teeth,’ said Bragi, ‘but I’ve had worse.’ He raised his voice. ‘But then again I’m used to fighting big men, not these skinny berserks.’

Vali thought he actually saw Bodvar Bjarki laugh as he tied off a rope.

Vali went back to the matter in hand. ‘What do you think we can do?’

Bragi shrugged. ‘We can’t sail the ship with two of us. If they’re not going to kill us, I’d say we have to stick with them. The moment we’re in sight of land, we attack.’

‘I have no weapon.’

‘Tyr, god of battles will, provide.’

‘He may provide an early death,’ said Vali

‘I have lived a long time,’ said Bragi. ‘I am not greedy for years, only fame.’

There were around sixty men on the ship, two of them with axes ready and another three with spears guarding them, watching with expressions somewhere between anger and fear. Feileg simply sat at the back of the boat looking at his feet. Vali remembered that the wolfman hadn’t liked travelling under sail but didn’t see how he could feel seasick in such a large, stable ship.

He looked out. No land. He realised that they must have left Haithabyr on the opposite course to the one they’d arrived on. They’d been taken to the town and transferred to another boat which had then doubled back. That was why their journey to the open sea had been so long. Bragi said the inlet from Hemming’s court connected to the river Edjeren and out to the Northern Sea by a man-made channel. That was the route they had taken. They were, Vali guessed, navigating now by the sun and the stars, which gave them a good chance of getting lost. That was his best bet. If the ship lost its way and had to set down on a strange coast he might be able to escape. He sat back against a spar.

‘Sleep if you like. I’ll watch these bastards,’ said Bragi.

So Vali slept, or rather hovered uncomfortably between waking and sleeping.

The sea fell to a dead calm and the boat went on under oar for a while. In his semi-conscious condition the rhythm of the rowing seemed like something animal, a heartbeat. His mind seemed to enter the beat, to be taken over by it, and then the cadence seemed to change subtly. It was no longer so slow and easy, but faster and more frenzied. He began to dream — or so he thought — and he saw Adisla and Feileg and that strange rune. It seemed to pulse and move, to vibrate and thump, and he realised it wasn’t the oars at all that were making the noise, but the rune. And it was not floating and incorporeal, as he had thought it to be, but was real, painted onto a surface. He breathed in and smelled hide and wood — a fire. The rune was shaking. It was painted on a drum. Someone was beating a drum with that horrid symbol on it. He looked through the rune and he saw Adisla — but where was she? She was at the centre of a circle of wild animals: wolves, bears, stags, even a huge eagle. But then his mind cleared and he saw them for what they were — men in animal masks. They were beating drums, drums peppered with that rune, which seemed to lift from the skins as they beat them, to go floating up through the night. He knew where they were going — towards him. They seemed to sweep over him, enveloping him in a swarm. He had the sense that the men were showing him that they had her. They were calling him, even laying a trail for him to follow. There was another thing there though, something old and hungry, something that prowled at the edge of his mind, watching. Its presence seemed like a blind shaft, a drop away into nothing, and the cold he felt from it was the same cold he had felt when Disa had worked her magic on him.

The drumbeat filled up his mind.

When he turned he saw the man he had seen at the shield wall, tall and pale with a shock of red hair.

‘Help me find her,’ said Vali.

‘You will find her,’ he said, ‘and you will be lost. Welcome the sorcerer’s gift. Your anger is now a gate for him and he can hear it opening. Let these little ones in.’

He had picked up a fistful of those spiky runes and sprinkled them over Vali’s head.

‘What does the drummer want from me?’

‘For you to know yourself.’

‘Who am I?’

The man held Vali in his arms and kissed him on the forehead.

‘Would you know?’

‘I would know.’

‘Then know.’

He was drowning again, the filthy water obscuring his sight, filling his lungs and choking his consciousness. The drums were thumping in his head and, above them, he heard Jodis telling them to put him under. He saw himself in that chamber where the rune had been, knowing that it expressed himself, Adisla and Feileg, knowing they were inseparable. He realised what he had missed before — he hadn’t seen where he was watching from. He felt a pain in his mouth like a pin, felt tight bonds about him, smelled blood and fire and felt an anger of injustice boiling within him.

He tried to speak his name, but all that came out was a howl of agony, a roar of injustice. He was the wolf.

‘Get up. This is our chance. In the name of Thor’s bulging nut sack, get up. What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with you?’ It was Bragi’s voice, shouting, urgent. Vali could also hear screams — men hurling obscenities and threats.

He stood. Something bizarre was happening. The merchant Veles came flapping past him, waving his arms almost as if he was swimming through the air. Then, with an unexpected turn of athleticism, he pulled himself up by one of the ropes that was securing the big barrels and leapt inside, quick as a rabbit into a hole.

Vali looked around. A huge full moon turned the sea to crumpled metal, and no more than bowshot away was a broad bank of thick fog almost glowing in the moonlight. There came the sound of rain — or something like it — and everyone scrambled for cover, cowering beneath shields or ducking under the longship’s rail.

He looked off to the side. Two drakkars, the real deal with carved dragons’ heads, were upon them, showering their ship with thick black volleys of arrows. Where had they come from?

‘Haarik! Haarik!’ came the chant.

They were raiders from Aggersborg. If Haarik was on board then Vali wanted his blood.

There was a shore in sight under the bright moon. They had blundered too close to Haarik’s land and were paying the price. Still, Vali would welcome being captured by Haarik — in a way. It would put him closer to Adisla. Logic though wasn’t uppermost in his mind. Something else was gnawing away at him. What had the man in the feather cloak said to him? He couldn’t think. His head was still resonating to the sound of those drums. Then all reason seemed to desert him. These attackers were the kin of the men who had stolen Adisla, killed little Manni, uprooted him from his home and the people he called family. Vali coughed. It was the same cough he’d had in the mire. His throat felt dry and tight, his head light, his ears seemed full of a throbbing beat. He couldn’t order his thoughts, couldn’t find direction.

‘Danes, Danes, Haarik’s men, thieves and murderers to be torn and wasted. Kill them. Kill them all. None alive, none alive. My oath is murder to them. I tear and bite, bite and tear.’

What was happening to him? Now he was shaking and coughing. Now he was freezing cold, just as he had been when Bragi had dragged him from the water of the drowning pool.

‘Pirates! Prince, it’s now or never. We should bargain with them. This is our freedom!’ It was Bragi, but Vali couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. His head was spinning. It was as if the reality he had experienced in his dream, the reality of the dark waters, had replaced that of the attack.

Some archers in Vali’s boat were returning fire although most of Bjarki’s men were still struggling to free their weapons from sea barrels. Vali seemed to move through a soup of stress and anger, as if the men leaked these things from them in their sweat.

A drakkar came swiping past, its oars withdrawn, to broadside their own, snapping off oars and sending men tumbling to the bottom of the boat. Only three men were left standing — himself, Feileg and Bodvar Bjarki, who was grinning and laughing behind his huge shield, a fine sword in his hand.

Grappling hooks came into the ship. The war jabber was in his ears, the stink of fear all around him. He felt as if the rune was hooked through his throat, pulling him up towards a terrible destiny. His blood pumped in his head like something was trying to burst from inside him. And then it did — a word that seemed more than a word, more like a vortex, a sucking piece of the night into which he would abandon himself.

‘Fenrisulfr.’

It felt right, as if for the first time he was saying his name.

‘They tied me as they tied my father,’ he heard himself say.

‘What are you talking about? We need to get to that ship.’ It was Bragi.

‘I will lap their vital ichors.’

‘Prince, you’re raving. At least lie down. You’re going to be hit.’

‘Fenrisulfr.’

Vali stepped towards the bouquet of the fight. It all seemed so delicious to him: the heavy sweats of fear and rage, and the blood, above all the blood, where the sweet arrow did its work, where the lovely sword cut and the pretty axe hewed.

‘The fetters have burst,’ he said.

And then the blood mire took his mind.