‘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 t
hey 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.
35 A Wolf’s Treat
Vali woke. He was in fog. It was day and the mast cast long shadows into the air like the rays of the sun coming behind a cloud, but streaking the fog with darkness not light. The rays floated before him, a black web on grey, almost as if the creaks of the ship that broke the damp silence had been given visible expression.
He looked down at his clothes, or what was left of them. They were torn and dark with blood. There was a taste in his mouth - blood too. He felt torpid and slow-witted, as you might after a heavy meal in the afternoon sun.
‘Bragi?’ No answer. He had his hand on something soft. He looked to see what it was and screamed. It was a man, his ribcage torn away, his limbs broken, staring up from beneath him. Vali jumped to his feet. There was someone beside him. He started and was about to leap back, but there was no need. It was just his own shadow, a fog spectre cast by the sun, eerily solid. He looked about him. The boat was full of corpses ripped and mutilated in the most horrible way. Dead eyes stared at him; limbs reached for him; entrails snaked at his feet; the smell of death filled up his nostrils.
He staggered around, trying to get away from the dead men, but they were everywhere, from stern to prow. He ran in a crazy dance, lifting his knees high as if attempting to float above the corpses. He felt a hand clutch at his shoulder and he turned to see the wolfman looking back at him. Feileg was gaunt and pale, and a long deep cut ran from the top of his arm across his chest. Vali took a step back, tripped over a body and fell onto it. Repulsed, he tried to stand. The wolfman grasped him and pulled him to his feet.
‘How long?’ said Vali.
‘A week,’ said the wolfman.
‘I’ve been unconscious a week?’
‘Not unconscious,’ said the wolfman.
‘Then what?’
The wolfman looked at the bodies.
‘You?’ said Vali.
‘Not me.’
‘Why didn’t you throw them overboard?’
Feileg stared into Vali’s eyes.
‘I was afraid of you,’ said the wolfman.
The explanation did not make sense to Vali. The wolfman was easily his better in a fight and could do what he liked.
‘Why were you afraid of me?’
‘You are a wolf,’ said the wolfman. ‘I had to hide from you among these dead.’
Vali could not grasp what Feileg was saying. His head felt light and the day, even under the fog, too bright. He looked at the bodies. They were Danes, around twenty of them, and none had any signs of arrow strikes or sword cuts. Rather, their wounds were ragged and torn. One man had half his face ripped away, and it looked more as if he had been attacked by a wild animal than killed in battle.
Vali couldn’t bear the corpses staring at him in that unnatural light any longer. He spent a few moments steeling himself and then began to tip them overboard into the sea, removing any swords and purses before he did so. The work was long and it was hard. Vali felt exhausted and had to take frequent breaks as his distaste for what he was doing became too much. Feileg’s wound pained him and he was little help. The fog began to clear and birds to descend - mainly gulls but crows too. The sight of the crows gave Vali hope. They weren’t far from land. Still, he made some effort to shoo them away. Had the birds mutilated the corpses before flying off as the boat slid into the fog?
Feileg helped him lift a stout Dane up to the shield rail. The man was much heavier than he looked and it was a terrible heave to get him there. They propped him for a moment to recover their breath, the corpse leaning over the side like someone seasick rather than dead. And then Vali realised what had happened.
‘You did this to them, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You did this evil thing.’
The wolfman looked at him without expression. ‘Prince,’ he said, ‘you must not talk to me like that, for you ate a wolf’s treat.’
‘Have you taken to talking in riddles, Feileg? Our human company has had a corrupting effect on you. Say what you mean plainly.’
The wolfman said nothing.
The Dane had clearly been decomposing for some time. As they lifted his legs over the side, his stomach split, enveloping Vali in a cloud of corpse gas. He retched. The man slid into the water and Vali shuddered, wiping away the vomit. There was a strange metallic taste in his mouth, not unpleasant at all, he thought. He looked at his hand and then down to his boots where he had been sick. More blood. Instinctively he felt his sides, his arms and legs. He hadn’t been wounded but still he was retching blood. The wolfman continued to watch him without expression.
When the last body was gone, Vali sat down, opened a sea chest and took out a skin of wine, drinking deeply. It tasted odd, unpleasant even. He concluded it was off. Why would a man take bad wine on a trip? He tried another. That was off too, as was a skin of beer. It tasted repulsive, undrinkable.
Finally, he found a skin with water in it and drank from that. It tasted much better, though he was now aware of other scents, suggestions of things he couldn’t name but that made him think of the death throes of the animal which had been used to make the skin. He perceived something else as he drank - more than a taste, a sense of who had used the skin before. It had been drunk from just before the battle commenced - there was the sweat of anxiety on it.
And then he realised that beneath the salt of the sea, the smell of the wet boards and the ropes, he could smell a thousand other notes. Grass, loam, reindeer, trees, drying sand and seaweed, even a smell so familiar and powerful it almost made him laugh. Wet dog. In his mind Vali saw Disa driving Hopp away from the fire, saying they’d be having roast dog for dinner if he sat any closer. He breathed in and knew they were near land.
Vali looked out but could see nothing. He could tell by the scent of pine needles that the nearest land lay to his east, away from where the sun was throwing its fog shadows. The ship was caught in a current and was far too big for him to sail, but he took the rudder and tried to steer it that way.
The wolfman just kept looking at him.
Vali’s thoughts had been disordered by the corpses and his long unconsciousness. As they began to come back to normality, he realised he had forgotten to ask a very important question. ‘Do you know what happened to Bragi?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said the wolfman.
‘What?’
‘You killed him.’
36 The Blood Mire
Vali did not, as Feileg did, remember the attack. Nor did he remember the huge moon reducing the world to silver and black, lines and a circle.
The drakkars had come upon them quietly from the fog bank. Feileg thought the ambush must have been directed by a sorcerer who was working for the pirates How else would Bodvar Bjarki’s ship have been spotted at night, and through such fog?
He didn’t know that magic was involved, though with a bigger ambition than plunder. In the caves of the Troll Wall, the witch was working to speed him to his destiny and on the flat rock of his island the northern sorcerer sat entranced for a week beating his drum and chanting his chants to bring Vali to him. So the Danish warlord had found himself unable to sleep tht night. The inside of his longhouse seemed unbearably stuffy and he had gone outside for some air. Looking out over the sea, he had seen a movement. It was a squall of starlings, wheeling against the big moon, turning and vanishing. It was then that he’d seen the Drakkar, out towards the
horizon, skirting an incoming fog. It was potentially dangerous to set sail in such weather but the temptation was too great. His men had not needed rousing. A mob of them were at his door before he had picked up his spear. They too had found no comfort in their beds that night and had seen the enemy vessel. Two ships were crewed and launched before the fog had moved a boat length.
The attackers had lost sight of their prey in the fog but had been guided by the slow beat of Bjarki’s oars through the murk. Both Danish ships had matched that rhythm to hide the sound of their own approach. From within the white world of the fog the voices of the men on the target boat, Vali’s conversation with Bragi even, would have sounded loud and close by.
Leading up to the attack, Bjarki, noted the wolfman, had been nervous. The fog was approaching and the berserk headed out to sea to keep clear of any sandbanks or rocks.