The weather got rougher, so rough they could not go under sail. They used the oars as best they could to keep within sight of the longship. The passengers grew quieter and the stock noisier. A crewman was heard threatening to wring the gander’s neck if it didn’t leave off that wretched honking. Eyvind shoveled cattle dung over the side and tried to ration the grain. He did notice, once or twice, that the fair-haired girl was talking to Somerled quite a bit, and he wondered what the two of them could possibly have in common. Since Somerled was still spending half his time leaning over the sea retching, he was surely less than an ideal companion. Once, Eyvind saw the girl slip as a wave caught the knarr, lifting the bows high, and Somerled’s arm come out quickly to steady her. If anything, Eyvind was pleased by this development. She was a little young, certainly, but if she took Somerled’s mind off his brother’s wife, that surely had to be good.
On the fourth day, Ulf released one of his ravens. The bird circled the fleet and flew off westward. They waited. By nightfall the creature had not returned, and Ulf conveyed to the other ship by shouts and signs that he was well pleased. It seemed their course was true.
Eyvind had had little sleep, but he was used to that. A warrior is trained to endure far worse hardships. That night he slumbered lightly, for all his weariness, and woke abruptly while it was still pitch dark. He could not identify what he had heard. He only knew it meant danger. Not the boat: it was moving steadily and slowly, sail reefed, anchor trailing. The folk slept safe under the awning, the stock were mercifully quiet. He could see the fellow on watch in the bow, up beyond the sleeping area. All seemed well. But he had heard it. Eyvind got quietly to his feet, and there it was again: not creaking timbers nor snore of man or woman, not moving water nor cry of sea creature, but something wrong, something out of place. A hissing gasp, a wheeze of expiring air, a sound born of pain. He moved. A hunter has sharp eyes and sharper ears. Something dark by the rail on the port side: perhaps only Somerled being sick again? No, there were two men here, and the one bent over the rail was held there forcibly, pinned down by the other. The redheaded man had a grip on Somerled’s hair and was pushing his head downward, crushing his neck against the rail. Somerled’s left arm flailed helplessly, his right was twisted up behind his back at an impossible angle. It was his gasp Eyvind had heard, the sound a man makes when he has not quite enough time to breathe before his throat is constricted once more. And Firehead’s fierce whisper, “That’s for today…and that’s for yesterday…and that’s for what you did before…”
Eyvind was there in two great strides, grabbing Firehead by the arms. The fellow was strong; his fingers were most reluctant to give up their deathlike grip on Somerled’s hair. Eyvind applied a well-practiced technique involving a knee to a particular point in the back, and Firehead gave a grunt of pain and released his hold. Somerled crumpled to the deck, sucking in a strangled, croaking breath. Eyvind backed Firehead against the knarr’s rail, holding him fast with a cunning grip on the neck. Firehead had stopped struggling, realizing, perhaps, that it was pointless when the man who held you was a Wolfskin.
“You can let me go,” he muttered. “I’ve no quarrel with you.”
“What sort of fool are you?” hissed Eyvind. “You nearly killed him! Your job’s to sail this thing and follow Lord Ulf’s orders, not strangle his family! What am I supposed to do with you?” Cautiously he released his grasp. Firehead stared back at him, his face reduced to a mask of moonlight and shadow in the rocking dark. Beside them, Somerled was getting slowly to his feet. His breathing sounded tight and painful.
Firehead spat on the deck. “I’ve told you,” he said flatly. “But you wouldn’t hear me. He’s at it again; he’ll never change. Haven’t you seen him with that girl, the one with the young brother? But no, you wouldn’t notice, you’re blinded by the promise you made. You should have let me finish this now.”
It was as good as telling them who he was; who he had once been.
“We thought you might be able to put that behind you,” Eyvind said quietly. “Not let it poison your whole life. My mother thought you might have come back. There’s always been a place for you at Hammarsby. It’s your home as much as it is mine and Eirik’s.”
“There’s no going back.” Firehead’s tone was bleak. He turned and walked away, down to his watch in the stern, and the darkness swallowed him.
“Are you all right?” Eyvind whispered to Somerled, who was touching his throat gingerly. “We’ll have to report this to the ship’s master; he nearly killed you.”
“No need,” Somerled croaked.
“But—”
“Leave it, Eyvind. This will work itself out. Trust me.”
“But, Somerled—”
“Leave it, will you?”
The next morning Ulf released a second raven, and they observed its direction before hoisting sails and following after. The wind was strong from the north, there was a relentless swell, and progress was both fast and uncomfortable. All longed for the voyage to be over.
As for what had happened the night before, both Firehead and Somerled appeared to have forgotten it. Each behaved as usual, the one occupied with sailing the ship, the other still spending most of his time doubled over the rail. Somerled was no seafarer. Eyvind was beginning to relax, thinking that there was not so far to go now, and perhaps they might get there without further trouble, when there was a sudden bellow from the stern of the knarr, followed by a chorus of shrieks from the passengers. The bull, which had been growing increasingly restless as the days of close confinement and lurching movement went on, had begun to jerk its head about with some violence, snorting and stamping. Two stout ropes tethered the creature to iron rings set in the decking, but it was not hobbled. Such fetters would pose too great a risk of breaking a limb if the ship’s movement caused a fall, and this fine animal was to be the foundation of Ulf’s breeding herd. Now its angry struggles had broken one of its tethers, leaving only a single length of rope to restrain it. Sensing freedom close, it continued to buck and twist and pull at this last bond, roaring its anger. The heifers raised their voices in support; the sheep, chickens, and geese joined in hysterically, driving the bull to more strenuous efforts. And suddenly, amidst the cacophony of animal noises, there was a sound of splitting timber as the pine decking started to give beneath the onslaught of the creature’s hooves. The crewmen backed away, oars abandoned. The women screamed, gathering children in close. Little imagination was required to picture what damage a beast of that size, with those horns, could do to vessel and passengers before it might be checked or leap overboard in its frenzy. The head jerked anew, the horns scythed through the air. Folk cringed. Who could get anywhere near, even supposing anyone were foolish enough to try?
They say a Wolfskin does not know fear, not as a normal man does. It did not occur to Eyvind to stand back. Arming himself with a looped length of rope, he moved in on the crazed bull, holding the tether unobtrusively by his side. He made his progress slow and quiet, balancing each step against the knarr’s movement. On the other side, Firehead was edging in behind the thrashing animal. He had seized a short pole with an iron hook on one end. Because they had done this sort of thing before, catching stock for branding or gelding, there was no need for either man to speak; each knew his part. Firehead would try to get a purchase on the remaining tether, or the horns, while Eyvind moved in to loop the rope on and secure it. They’d need to be quick; the single restraint was starting to give, and the boards beneath the bull’s hooves were cracking and splitting. The animal was kicking at random, and the swinging of its head grew ever wilder.
Firehead moved closer; he lifted his hook. Eyvind stood still, noose now ready in his hand, awaiting the single moment when it might be slipped on safely. The hook would not hold the bull for long. The creature’s small eyes moved from one man to the other and back again. Eyvind glanced at Firehead, and Firehead gave a little nod, Now.
“Why don’t you use a spear and kill the creature?”
The voice was Somerled’s, clear and logical. “That way you can keep your distance, and we all stay safe.”
“Get out of the way, you fool!” Eyvind snapped, alarmed that his friend had been foolish enough to come so close; he stood on the opposite side, barely out of reach of those flying hooves. Somerled didn’t know a thing about handling stock. “Let Sigurd get in there, he has to hold the head still while I put this on. If you think I’m stupid enough to slaughter Ulf’s stud bull you’re mistaken. Now shut up and let us get on with this.”
The creature’s eyes narrowed; it lowered its head as if to charge.
“Hoo now, hoo now,” Eyvind repeated softly, knowing this creature was beyond being reassured thus, but saying it anyway, for at least it kept the bull’s attention on him and off the others. “Hoo now, bonny one.” That fraying rope was the only thing stopping the bull from coming straight at him; there was blind terror in those crazy eyes. “Hoo now, my bold one.” For an instant, the creature held still; this was the moment. Firehead stretched out with the hook. Eyvind had the noose in place to slip over the horns. Then everything went mad. There was a furious bellow and a whirl of chaotic movement. Hooves flew, wood splintered, the bull’s head swung to the side in a violent jerk that snapped the last tether, and it was free. The great horns swept across this way, that way, and entered Firehead’s chest as easily as a knife pierces a ripe pear. Eyvind stood frozen in shock as the creature lifted Firehead bodily from the deck, cruelly suspended on that spear of horn. Then, in a single great swing of its head, the bull set its burden free, tossing the redhaired man clean over the knarr’s side and out into the heaving swell of the ocean. Firehead had made no sound at all, save for a grunt of surprise as the horn took him; death had granted him no chance to tell his story, or call on his gods. He was gone in an eye-blink. The bull pawed the deck and lowered its head again; its horns were stained bright red. But Eyvind’s axe was already in his hand. There was no choice now. His single blow struck true, cleaving the skull between the small, furious eyes, and Ulf’s best breeding bull fell lifeless on the splintered deck. Its end was as quick as the man’s. If Eyvind knew anything, it was how to kill cleanly.
Once people accepted the bull was really dead, they ran to help. It was too late for Firehead. No man could survive such an injury, even supposing it might be possible to find him in that surging expanse of icy water. While the ship’s master maneuvered her close enough to the Golden Dragon so they could shout across to Ulf, Eyvind knelt by the bull’s still-warm body and carefully extricated his axe from where it was lodged deep in the skull. Biter was a fine weapon; he never let it rust or lose its edge. The axe had saved many lives today. He wished it could have saved Sigurd’s—Firehead’s—as well. Why had the bull suddenly gone mad like that? He was sure they’d had enough time, certain they could have tethered it safely, between the two of them. Now all the creature was fit for was roasting on a spit and being served up for supper, and Eyvind would never learn the tale behind Firehead’s haunted eyes. He got to his feet, studying the great, limp body and thinking that the open deck of a knarr, with rain beginning to slant in, was scarcely the ideal spot for cutting joints of meat. He bent over again, looking more closely. He squatted down by the creature’s rump. What was this? There was blood here, not Sigurd’s blood, for that was all on the horns and the rail and sprayed over the inner surface of the strakes. This blood dripped down the inside of the bull’s rear legs, and pooled now on the deck beneath its tail. There was a fresh wound there, a slit to the animal’s testicles, and it was from this the blood still ran, though that would stop soon enough. How could such a tidy cut have been inflicted in such a place? Perhaps the bull had damaged itself in its frenzy, maybe it had gashed the testes on something: a jutting piece of wood, a food trough, anything. What else could this be? Yet the cut was so neat, like a surgeon’s incision, and there was no barrel, no protrusion; the stock area was always kept as clear as possible. This was like a knife wound, precise and true. But that could not be. There had been nobody close enough, nobody with the opportunity. Almost nobody. In the back of his mind, Eyvind put two things together. A painful jab to the privates. A sudden enraged lunge, breaking the last rope and impaling a man all at once. He knelt by the bull, thinking. Firehead had died. But it might just as easily have been himself or even Somerled. Nobody could have known which way the bull would turn. A risky game indeed.
The ship’s master was calling; Ulf was responding. He wanted the bull thrown into the sea: an offering for Freyr. They could not afford to have the ill omen of Firehead’s death over this voyage. Eyvind decided he must be imagining things, for there was no sense to what his mind was telling him. He rose to his feet; there was work to be done.
“Oh, dear,” said Somerled. He stood quietly at a little distance, his face gravely composed. “He seemed quite a useful fellow, too. Still, I expect they’ll manage to sail this tub without him. And if these islands provide the lush grazing my brother praises so lavishly, no doubt there will be wild cattle there for the taking.”
“He was a friend of mine once,” Eyvind said, frowning. It unsettled him when Somerled spoke like this. It was as if he thought nothing in the world of very much account.
“You’re a strange creature, Eyvind,” said Somerled. “Death should be nothing to you. Don’t you deliver it a hundredfold as your daily business? What does it matter if this fellow got his chest split open? He was nobody. He was no different from the Jutes and Franks you take with your trusty axe when you’re out impressing Magnus on his raids.”
“It is different.” Eyvind was watching the crew as they began to drag the bull’s bloody carcass forward to the place where they could most easily lift it over the side of the knarr. “This was a friend. At heart, a good man. And it seemed to me that we—I—owed him something. Because of that business with Ragna.”
“Who?” asked Somerled blankly.
Eyvind looked at him, and looked away. “Forget it,” he said. There was a doubt in his mind, a terrible, dark doubt, that stretched not just over today’s shocking events but back into the distant past. His fingers touched the scar on his forearm, mark of an oath deep and binding, a promise of lifetime loyalty. He closed his eyes a moment, and sent up a silent prayer to Thor. Let this not be true. Let me be wrong about him. They cast the bull’s body into the water, but Freyr was not pleased. The wind changed; the rain began to descend in icy sheets, plastering the men’s clothing to their skin and scouring the deck clean of blood. Ulf’s intended course had been toward the setting sun, but it now became clear the god’s angry breath was driving both vessels away from their true path toward a region trackless and empty, where the dark waters held only the lurking terror of sea monsters and the sudden sharp grip of low-lying skerries. On the knarr, they manned the oars, but the current pulled so hard it threatened to rip the lengths of heavy pine from their hands, and the vessel plunged ahead on her own wild course. The passengers clung to ropes, to rails, to one another, to whatever they could find, shocked into a white-faced silence. Ahead of them in the gloom of driving rain and ocean spray, the dark form of the Golden Dragon was barely visible above the turmoil of surging water.
Eyvind narrowed his eyes; he could scarcely see a ship-length beyond the knarr’s prow. If Ulf had been right in his calculations, they must surely even now be passing their intended safe harbor, swept beyond it by the elements’ fury. It was as if day had become night; the storm had turned the world to darkness. He closed his eyes. Thor! He spoke in silence, in the depths of the heart. Thor, I am your loyal son. I have served you with all my strength. Help us now, best of sailors. Show us the way.
“Land!” someone shouted. “I see land! Look, there to the south!”
“And there to the north!” yelled another man.
Eyvind’s eyes snapped open. It was true. Now, dimly showing between the curtains of rain, a low, dark mass could be discerned. It was not so very far off, and yet it might have been at the other end of the world,
so little chance there seemed of changing course to reach it. The ship followed her own will now. Another shape loomed farther away, and more again, small islands, bigger islands, like a pod of whales rising in stately convoy from the ocean depths.
The crew shouted to Ulf, “Land! Land!,” but the gale snatched away their voices. They hauled on the oars anew; they wrestled with the sail. The angry waters were full of white spray, and the knarr pitched and tossed, timbers groaning in protest. The Golden Dragon was a distant shadow in the gray ocean.
Eyvind gripped his oar, knuckles white. He looked up into the storm-split sky, and the rain fell hard and punishing onto his face. I did not want to come here, Thor. Surely the god must hear his warrior, even in this desolate corner of the world. You know how it is for a fighting man. I obeyed my chieftain; I went where I was bid to go. But I am loyal. Guide us safely to shore, Warfather! Let us not come to grief on these skerries, nor be wrecked against these rocks. Bring us whole to landfall. We are your Wolfskins, and will serve you while we have breath in our bodies. Save us for a noble death in battle, not a futile end, adrift without purpose. Thor, aid your sons!
He waited. If Thor did not help, he thought, then no god would. Odin was a trickster, clever and unpredictable; he was difficult to please and his games were only for men who thrived on risks. Freyr had a temper. If one offended him, cataclysmic events might ensue: tempest, flood, drought, sudden maladies striking crops or men. With his power over the elements and seasons, Freyr could bestow plenty or famine. He appreciated a sacrifice, but even a fine bull might not be enough to calm his rage. Thor was different. Thor thought in terms any man could understand: life and death, friend and foe, courage and cowardice. He rewarded loyalty and despised treachery. Thor understood a warrior’s heart.