25: THE KILLING OF HAKI
Waiting for darkness, drifting with lowered sails in the open water over the horizon, fighters sharpened and oiled the blades of their weapons. Most of them smeared blue paint around their eyes: raiding was a very special occasion. Some young men, nervous before their first raid, rubbed fingers on soap-stone or clay idols of Tor, Baldur or Freyir, for good luck.
At sunset, men started putting on body-armour and helmets.
Halfdan opened his sea-box and took out a surprising-looking helmet. A curved bull-horn was stuck onto each of its iron sides, the horn-points sticking up.
Haki laughed and said, "What is that thing?"
"My raiding-helmet," Halfdan said.
"But why the horns?"
Halfdan said, "To look fierce."
"But they ruin the helmet. It's not practical for fighting. If a sword hits one of those useless horns, the whole thing will be knocked off your head."
"I know," Halfdan said. "But this is a raid, not a battle. In a battle, equipment needs to be good. In raiding, making panic is the main goal. This helmet will help with that."
"Let me see. Put it on."
Halfdan lifted the horned helmet and pushed it onto his curly hair. He bared his teeth and glared fake-furiously.
Haki said, "Amazing! You look just like a black troll!"
Halfdan said, "King Lambi taught me this trick. The helmet once belonged to him. He used to always wear it raiding, and folk would always scream and run away."
"Folk will try to run no matter what kind of helmet a raider wears."
Shrugging, Halfdan said, "I like the helmet, practical or not. I'm wearing it. If not to scare folk, then for good luck."
"I'd like a helmet like that, except with moose-horns. Or walrus tusks!" Haki staggered around the cluttered deck, pretending that he was wearing a helmet with gigantic, heavy horns. Everybody laughed.
Except Venn. Like always, he was glum and quiet, watching Halfdan from the corner of his eye.
Overhead, a full silver moon stared down.
The bright sky-eye was reflected in the grey ripples of the Endless Ocean.
They waited.
Dark clouds slid across the sky, westwards.
In the cloud-gaps, stars slowly spun.
A big fish splashed the surface.
They waited.
Finally, Halfdan said, "I think they should be asleep by now."
"Having sweet dreams," Haki grinned.
The steersman of Wave-Jumper called for quiet rowing towards the western horizon. The sails were kept down, to make the ships harder to see from shore. The other two ships followed.
Soon, they saw the dim island ahead.
The look-out of each ship used a length of string with a bronze weight to check the depth of the water as they moved, almost silently, through the darkness.
They could see a stretch of sandy beach on the south shore of the island.
"You want to land there?" asked the steersman.
Halfdan nodded.
A short distance from shore, the steersmen of the three ships dropped anchors -- willow-branch baskets full of stones, with wooden pieces sticking out to grip the sea-floor. The ships kept moving towards the island, with the anchor-ropes spooling out behind them. This was another of King Lambi's old raiding-tricks -- if they needed to get the ships away from the island quickly, men would pull the anchor-ropes and drag their ships to sea; it was much faster than rowing.
Halfdan stood at the bow with his Eid-forged iron sword in his right hand, his round painted shield in his four-fingered left hand, and the odd horned helmet on his head. In the moonlight, the helmet made a monstrous-looking shadow on the deck behind him.
Haki and his berserker cousin Sten were close behind Halfdan, panting with eagerness. In his excitement, Sten chewed on the edge of his shield. Haki did not have a shield. Both berserkers wore bear-skins over their shoulders and had smeared blue paint, not just around their eyes, but over their whole faces.
Behind brown-faced Halfdan and blue-faced Haki and Sten were the rest of the raiders, rowing; some of them almost as fiece-looking as their leaders.
All were silent.
Everybody had an extra pair of shoes, hanging around their neck by their laces.
The beach ahead was empty.
A cool, windy night.
Venn, sitting in the middle of the rowers, was trembling and wide-eyed with fear and hope. He feared violence, or having to hurt somebody innocent. He hoped for a chance to kill Halfdan and disappear.
The nose of Wave-Jumper bit into crunchy beach-sand.
Halfdan jumped from the ship, splashing into knee-deep water. Haki and Sten jumped down behind him, followed by all the fighters on all the ships, except for steersmen and look-outs, who would stay behind to guard the ships and keep them ready for a fast escape.
In addition to weapons and shield and armour and extra shoes, each man carried a torch and a coil of rope.
Three men carried ladders.
On the shore, everybody sat on the sand to take off their wet shoes and dry their feet on a cloth, before putting on a pair of dry shoes. They left the wet shoes behind.
Haki was grinning widely; the ax-handle trembled in his strong, hairy hands.
Other fighters wore their shields on their backs, a weapon in one hand, a torch in the other. The torches were each as long as a man's leg, tipped with blobs of pine-tar.
Halfdan and sixty-eight raiders walked fast up the dark beach to a wildflower-covered area. To their left was an area thickly covered with bushes and trees; it looked subtly different from Norse forests. To their right, over a low hill, was a dim farm-field covered with tidy rows of small sprouting plants. The Norsemen did not recognize the growing crop. There was a path between the forest and the farm-land. They took the path.
Soon, the low wooden wall of the outlander settlement.
The smell of wood-smoke and beast-shit.
The raiders stayed in the shadows of the forest to light the torches. One man used a flint and piece of iron to strike sparks onto some charred cloth, which quickly started burning; one torch was lit from this fire, and then the fire was passed from torch to torch until all were burning.
"Go!" Halfdan hissed.
And the flame-lit Norsemen charged towards the wall.
Three ladders were leaned onto it, and three lines of men flowed up the ladders and jumped down inside.
Halfdan, Haki and Sten were the first over.
<
br /> Haki was growling in his throat.
Halfdan whispered, "Quiet!"
They waited for the others to climb the ladders. The settlement was a dozen or so wooden buildings that formed an uneven square around the larger, stone-walled, strange-roofed building he had noticed earlier. The stone building had a tall spire on top of it, tipped by a decoration shaped like a "t".
The symbol of Tor? Many of the Norsemen had idols in that shape hanging from their necks. Did folk here also worship the thunder-god?
The raiders ran in torch-light towards the building.
They saw nobody at first.
No open windows or doors.
No sign of fire-light.
No dogs.
Halfdan led them towards the stone-walled building, where he expected to find the settlement's leaders. Halfdan was amazed to see that the roof of this building was made of metal.
Why?
Wide and level stone steps led to a small porch in front of the stone building's round-topped wooden doors. These doors were framed by carved stone, depicting twisted leafy vines and odd-looking folk with wings growing from their backs.
There were two long and deep-set windows over the door, each about as tall as a man. One window had a square-shaped top, the other a round-shaped top.
Something covering the windows glittered oddly in the torchlight, reflecting light like ice.
No latch or key-hole on the door.
Haki was about to swing his ax at the door when Halfdan said, "Wait."
He pushed the door and it opened.
They walked into a dark, empty room. The walls were perfectly smooth and painted white. The floor was covered with wood planks joined closely together to make a smooth surface. There was no furniture. On the walls were fastened a few small metal cages that looked like they were for holding torches; the walls over them were smoke-blackened.
On the other side of the empty room was an open door.
Through this door was another room -- an amazing room! The smooth walls and the high ceiling were painted in bright colours, brighter than any paints used in Norway, depicting men and women wearing strange, flowing clothes and standing among images of clouds and blue sky and odd symbols. Some of the folk in the pictures had bare feet and had big white wings growing from their backs. All the picture-folk had yellow circles painted around their heads. Unlike most Norse-folk, the eyes of most of the picture-folk were brown, and most had brown hair. Some were kneeling. Some were raising their arms. One winged painting-man held a flaming sword in one hand, a "t"-symbol in the other.
Who was depicted here?
Demons?
The largest picture in the long room was of a blue-robed, blue-eyed woman, holding a brown-eyed baby in her arms. The baby was holding another of those "t"-symbols, in a tiny fist.
At the far end of the room was a raised stage -- like a king's feasting-platform in a hall -- covered with very odd-shaped furniture. A tall, narrow table. A giant cup made of stone. And, hanging over the stage, was another "t"-symbol -- this one taller than a tall man, made of wooden beams nailed together. Something big and white was attached to it.
Haki ran to the stage and jumped up. He said, "Odin's eye! Look at all this silver! And gold too!"
Gold was very rare in Norway. Even kings and the richest nobles rarely owned more than one or two items made of this almost-priceless metal.
Haki had never seen so much gold in his life: cups, candle-holders, statues and objects of unknown purpose.
Halfdan walked deeper into the room, saying, "There's nobody here. Let's find the folk first, deal with them, then come back here for loot."
"Fine," Haki said, jumping down from the stage (with a gold candle-holder stuffed into his belt).
Halfdan realized that the thing attached to the big "T" at the far end of the room was a statue of an almost-naked man, hanging by its hands from the tips of the cross-beam. The brown-haired, brown-eyed man's head was surrounded by a circle of bright yellow paint. The eyes of the man-statue stared at Halfdan. When Halfdan moved to one side, the unnerving eyes seemed to follow him.
Splashes of red paint looked like fresh blood, flowing down from the statue's hands. Drops of red paint dribbled down the statue's forehead.
Who was this man?
Why did this room have such a big statue of a torture-victim?
Was he a sacrifice to Tor?
Halfdan did not like this place. It made him nervous. He ordered everybody back outside.
As they stepped out of the building, they heard a loud metallic clanging noise from one of the other buildings. The sound filled the night with clanging noise.
Venn, shocked, listened to the noise in amazement. It was the exact same clanging noise that he had been hearing in his ears ever since the river-battle! But now, suddenly, everybody else could hear it too! Venn giggled. This seemed a sign that Venn had made the right decision, volunteering to join this adventure. A sign from the gods, that revenge for Torvald was near!
Halfdan shouted, "It's an alarm! We've been seen! We're going to split into groups and each take a building!"
He ordered Haki and Sten and six other Fjordane-fighters to one of the smaller buildings, sitting a distance from all of the other buildings.
Haki's group ran with their torches and weapons to that building. The door was locked from the inside.
"No need to be quiet anymore," Haki said, handing his torch to Sten. Haki chopped twice at the wood door, breaking it into falling pieces.
Inside, a short hallway led to another door. It was also locked -- but from the outside. Haki lifted the door-latch, pushed open the door and carried his sizzling pine-sap torch inside. Then he stopped, his blue-painted face split into a wide grin.
A young, frightened looking woman with brown hair and freckles was standing by the edge of a bed. She looked about twenty-five years old. Her brown eyes were open but not directed towards Haki standing in the doorway. She wore plain grey clothes, with a grey scarf tied tightly over her head. A "t"-shaped symbol hung from a string on the grey bib covering her chest. No face-paint.
Haki turned to say to his cousin behind him, "Leave me alone here for a while. Go to the next building and wait for me there. I won't be long."
Sten said, "Halfdan won't be pleased if he hears."
"Then don't tell him. Go! Now!"
Sten and the other fighters left, and Haki in the doorway turned back to look at the young woman. She had not moved.
"Good evening," Haki said, not caring if she understood the Norse tongue.
But she did. In a heavy, bizarre accent, she said, "Who are you?"
Haki said, "A friend," and stepped into the r
oom.
"What do you want?"
"Friendship. I'm Haki, a great hero and berserker from a northern land. Do you want to be my friend?"
He closed the door behind him. Now the only light in the room was from the flickering and smoky torch held over Haki's helmet. He stepped towards her and the unmade bed, smiling.
The young woman said, "Leave me alone, please."
Haki noticed that there were no windows. "What is this place? A jail?"
After a pause, the young woman said, "Yes. It's a kind of jail."
"Why are you here?"
After another pause, the young woman said, "They locked me here for being a whore."
"A whore! A whore?"
"Yes. So there is no need to force yourself on me. I will give you sex for free."
And she laughed.
Haki was confused. He had been expecting screams by now.
A whore?
With her eyes still not looking directly at him, the young woman said, "How do you want me?"
"Any way I want."
She took a step towards his voice, saying, "Anything to please you, you hero from the north."
She smiled; it looked fake.
She stepped closer to him, seeming to not even notice the huge ax on his shoulder.
What was wrong with her?
Haki scowled. He took the ax from his shoulder and moved the blade towards the young woman's face.
No reaction.
As the oiled, gleaming iron neared her face, she did not move or glance at it. Only when he touched the sharp edge of the battle-ax to the tip of her freckled nose did she pull her face back, looking surprised.
Haki said, "Can't you see?"
"Not very well. I have been here in the dark for so long that my eyes have forgotten light. Light hurts my eyes. Everything looks like it's in a snow-storm."
"You are blind."
"Not forever. Just until my eyes get used to the light."
"They locked you alone here in the dark just for being a whore?"
"Yes, folk here hate whores. Because we love giving pleasure to men. I was famous for my skill in sex. Should I take off my clothes now?"
Haki laughed. "Fine, whore, show me your skills."
He stepped to the bed and laid his ax onto the messy grey blankets. Holding his torch overhead with his left hand, he used his right to open his silver, beast-shaped belt-buckle.
The young woman started unbuttoning her clothes and dropping them to the floor. When her underpants fell, she was naked. Her body was thin and pale, with narrow hips framing a triangle of wild brown hair; she shivered slightly. But she still did not show much fear.
Haki, by the bed, was lowering his pants with his free hand.
His part was thin and half-limp.
The blind, naked outlander woman said -- in a childish-sounding voice -- "May I use the pottie?"
"What?" Haki didn't understand the word "pottie".
"Can I piss?"
"Yeah, of course."
She walked to other side of the small room, to a wooden bucket resting on the dirt floor. It was beside a small pile of clean hand-cloths and a small wicker box half-full of dirty ones.
Haki expected her to sit on the bucket to piss. But she bent, grabbed the half-full bucket with both hands and turned to face Haki. She walked fast towards the sound of his heavy breathing.
"What are you doing?" he said. His pants were on the floor, one pant-leg wrapped around an ankle.
On the skin of her face, the outlander-woman felt the heat of the torch that Haki held overhead.
She heaved the bucket at Haki's torch. The stale body-water flew out of the bucket and splashed onto the torch.
Complete darkness.
They were both blind now.
Haki, shocked, felt cool liquid dribbling down his left arm. The piss reeked. He shouted, "You are crazy, whore!"
The young woman hissed, "I'm a virgin. And will stay this way."
She silently moved somewhere else.
"Crazy whore!" Haki bellowed, dropping the piss-wet torch, picking up his ax from the unseen bed. "I'll find you!"
"Better to find Christ!"
"What?"
He waved his arms around, trying to touch something, trying to remember the room's lay-out.
Where was the door?
Where were the walls?
Where were the pieces of furniture: the little table and the three-legged stool?
He took a few uncertain steps forward.
Where was the girl?
She'd tricked him.
Blackness, everywhere he looked.
For the first time in many years, Haki felt fear.
"Bitch! I'll kill you!"
He thought that he heard a sound to his right. He lunged that way and swung his ax. The heavy blade swished through the darkness, hitting nothing.
Her voice said, "Scared of the dark? I'm used to it."
He lunged and swung the ax again in the direction of her voice, but again hit nothing.
She moved around the room without any noise. She had lived here in the dark for over six months (except for a brief meeting outside with a local religious leader) and she did not need her eyes to help her move around the memorized room. Her hearing and other senses were much stronger than before she had been put here. She silently circled around Haki, keeping herself just out of the reach of his clumsy and panicked ax-swings.
The famous berserker was terrified.
The outlander moved towards the small table. On it was a steel-toothed comb with an oak-wood handle. The handle of the comb was sharp enough to use to hurt. She held the teeth of the comb in her small hand, with the handle sticking down. With her other hand, she picked up the three-legged stool.
As Haki hunted her, she hunted him.
She heard his clumsy footsteps pass. She threw the stool at the sound of his feet. Haki tripped on the stool, as she had hoped, and crashed to the ground, hitting the side of his face on the hard dirt-floor, grunting in pain. His ax fell from his grip.
Before he could recover, the young woman silently kneeled by his head. He lay on one side, stunned and disoriented
and so scared, with no way of knowing that she was now so close. She stabbed the sharp comb-handle over the sound of his breathing. It stabbed in his bearded cheek. She pulled the comb back and stabbed down again, this time plunging the sharp handle deep into a rolling eye. Something warm squirted all over her hand.
Haki screamed, hurting her ears with its loudness, as he lashed his arms and legs in all directions. Seeking after her.
As the young woman crawled backwards away, part of one of his fists hit the top of her head, painfully knocking her down.
She hissed, "You forced me to this."
"It really hurts," he groaned, holding his hands over his punctured eye and torn cheek.
"Sorry," she said, in her odd outlander accent.
When she heard Haki's arms and legs stop flailing, she crawled silently towards him, the comb-handle held by the side of her head.
She heard his breathing, close.
This time, she stabbed under the sound of his breathing. The oak-wood spike poked deep into his neck and she twisted it viciously into the soft, wet flesh and Haki grunted once.
"Mother Mary, forgive me," Leoba said, dropping the comb, covering her face with both hands, sobbing warm tears into her small, wet hands.