Crowbone (43 page)

The actual charge came almost as a relief, but folk had been watching it curl on them like a falling wave and had braced for it. This time, Crowbone did not see any of the enemy, for the Oathsworn of Orm were the ones with numbers here and formed the front two ranks. He heard the furred Sami crash on the shields, saw wood splinter up, heard the Oathsworn howl like wolves and their enemy scream and die.

It was an eyeblink, no more, but enough for the Sami to leave a heap of reindeer-clad bodies almost three deep in front of the locked shields; spearmen killed the moaners close enough to reach and those who were too far away were left to groan and cry for help, for no-one wanted to leave the shieldwall to finish them until such cries started to itch their teeth.

The moments crawled away and the thin wind’s shrieking bounced like thrown spears down the rocks of the cleft. Men passed leather water flasks back and forth; Svenke was carried off and other men bound up welts and scratches. Styr and Atli banged helmets together, panting and howling at each other – still here, they roared. Still here.

Then Klaenger appeared, panting slightly, face streaming and his eyes red from the acrid white smoke.

‘You have to see this,’ he said to Crowbone. ‘Better to bring a few men, I am thinking. Bring Boomer and the priest, too, for we may need what lore they both know.’

The curiosity burned everyone when Crowbone called the pair of them over, ignoring Orm and Finn, who scowled and questioned Klaenger themselves.

‘I found a way through the mountain.’

He paused, looked from Orm to Crowbone and back, licking dry lips.

‘There is no snow beyond it. No snow at all.’

Orm took Finn and Murrough, left Kaetilmund in charge, with Halfdan to take over if he was killed. Crowbone, with a look at Orm’s two grim warriors and his own men, the tremble-lipped skald, the determined priest and the grimly fearful Klaenger, slid across black stones, slush and puddles, into a wind that seemed to bounce and scream down the rocks, streaming all the stink and smoke round and behind them.

The cleft kinked to the right and Klaenger held up one hand, which froze them in mid-step – Crowbone realised the yellow bitch had come with him and crouched, trembling, by his side. He did not want to turn and see Bergliot, for he would have to order her back and knew she would defy him.

‘This is where I saw the light,’ Klaenger said. ‘I thought it might be a way out.’

‘Did you get to the part where such a thought found your feet?’ Murrough demanded.

‘
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur
,’ Adalbert declared, then looked at Crowbone.

‘Not the time for lessons,’ he snarled back and the bland face inclined itself in a gentle nod.

‘Nobody should be punished for his thoughts,’ Orm translated, then looked mildly at Crowbone, who was sure he was being mocked and whose glare said he did not like it.

‘I say that for Finn,’ Orm added blandly. ‘He does not like not knowing what is being said.’

Finn, grinning, confirmed it with a nod.

‘Well?’ Crowbone demanded into the silence that followed. ‘Do you all stay here, go back or go on with me?’

Klaenger, hackled up like an annoyed dog at Murrough’s implication, growled, ‘My feet found the thought you mentioned. Follow me.’

Then he paused and twisted a grin at the big Irisher.

‘Do not believe what you hear or see.’

That curdled the flesh on all of them and Finn cursed his back for the mystery he was leaving, but he was already gone, threading into the skeined smoke, before anyone could get him to speak plain.

The wind moaned and screamed like gulls, it seemed to Crowbone, mournful shrieks, hot and fetid. Murrough gripped his axe more tightly and glanced sideways at Orm, who glared back at him, raising an eyebrow as if daring him to start in about the very breath of a sleeping dragon.

Then they stepped beyond the smoke, to where ranks of heads screamed on their poles, sightless eyes staring, snaggle-toothed mouths open, the last of their hair wisping round the ruin of their faces. The heads shrieked at them so that everyone froze and crouched – save for the yellow bitch, who bounded forward and growled and barked. Up ahead, Klaenger stood, unconcerned and enjoying a measure of revenge for what he had been asked to do. Then he laughed and smacked one of the heads, so that it spilled from its stake and rolled towards them. The dog chased it, barking.

‘First time I saw them I shat myself,’ he pointed out. ‘But I threw a stone at one and nothing happened, so I had a closer look.’

He indicated that others should and Finn stirred the grinning horror with the point of his nail, so that the flesh still hanging like black strips waved in the wind. There were three holes punched in the back of the skull and Klaenger nodded when he saw folk understood.

‘They are all like this,’ he said and then laughed at the scowls.

‘A rare joke,’ Finn said bitterly to him. Three holes fluted the hot wind through each head, so that it appeared that they shrieked, as clever an idea as pretending to bark from secret like a guard dog and for the same reason.

‘These are northmen,’ Crowbone said, calling the yellow bitch by the name he had given it – Vigi. In the end, he had to catch it by the ruff and drag it away, for it was no good thing to maul the recently dead.

‘The folk who know them will not share the joke in it,’ he added.

‘Well spoken,’ said Orm and, for a moment, there was a warmth between them, an echo of what had once been. Finn and Murrough knelt and inspected the grisly skulls, as if examining lathe-made bowls. Bergliot moved up, one hand to her mouth and Finn glanced up at her.

‘You should go home, woman,’ he growled. ‘This is no place for you.’

‘The Norns wove her into this,’ Crowbone answered harshly. ‘Let them unpick her.’

‘Move,’ Orm told them, to bring them back to watchfulness. Cautious as sheep round wolf scent, they moved down past the shrieking skulls, through the last veils of smoke and steaming pools – then, like balm to the eyes, the shrouded white was swept away and, lolling beneath them like a naked blonde maiden with two bags of gold, was a little bowl-shaped scoop of valley, with grass cleared of snow and the huge mass of the mountain looming above and all around.

It was warm in that place, so that the grass of it, though winter sere, seemed like the rippling autumn pelt of a fox and the copses had bare trees that were tall, and those that were evergreen had branches that trembled like a rich man’s belly in the ever-present swirl of warm wind.

Under one of them was a whipping vein of smoke; furred men stood up, spears ready and for a moment matters winked at the brim of blood. Then a woman’s voice said something and the beast-men sank down like dogs.

Crowbone was hammered into the ground, as if a fist had struck him in the belly, driving air and sense out of him. Hate and fear welled in him and he almost went on one knee, then recovered himself, though he had to push to do it, lifting his head to see the puzzled worry in Orm’s face.

‘Gunnhild,’ he said and Orm’s eyes widened. He peered, then shook his head.

‘Not Gunnhild, lad,’ he declared. ‘This is another witch.’

Unconvinced, Crowbone was barely aware that he moved at all; the last few steps towards her seemed like a walk through sucking bog wearing iron shoes.

Finnmark, the mountain of Surman Suuhun …

CROWBONE’S CREW

THÓRGERTH Hölgabrúth she said her name was and Gjallandi went pale at the sound of it, for he knew that name well. Orm only knew that the name somehow meant a bride and had the taint of
seidr
on it – but Thor was in it and that bluff, red-haired god was not noted for spawning women of magic.

Crowbone did not care what her name was, for up close she was not Gunnhild and that was all that mattered to him. Oh, she had the cat’s arse mouth and a skin soft as chewed reindeer hide, but she was taller, thinner, both old and young at the same time, with eyes that were curious, resting on his own with the blue intensity of old ice.

‘You have an axe in your care, mistress,’ Crowbone managed to growl, keeping polite in his voice for he was aware that Klaenger had gone down on his knees, while Adalbert had done the opposite and drawn himself up as tall as he could, sticking his chin defiantly at her and making the sign of the cross back and forth on his chest.

She ignored all of this, while her Sami guard dogs fanned out warily.

‘I had,’ she answered, her voice cracked as a bad pot, the Norse in it blurred with neglect. ‘A wise woman came for it. Though I am not so sure she was all that wise, for she had fetched it once before and it had killed her man and all her other sons but one. Now she wants it for this last.’

‘
Ave María, gratia plena
,’ Adalbert intoned, his face raised and eyes closed. ‘
Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in muliéribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus
.’

‘So Erling had the truth of it,’ Crowbone spat bitterly. ‘Gunnhild and her son have the Bloodaxe.’

‘Was there a Christ priest here?’ Orm demanded. ‘With a bad leg and looking like something freshly dug up?’

‘There was – gently, gently,’ she said, the last spoken to the Sami, grown restive with the priest’s chanting, for they clearly thought he was casting some spell. She held her hands straight down by her sides, palms level with the earth and the furred warriors sank down on one knee, gathered protectively round her.

‘That axe is mine,’ Crowbone declared, his eyes narrowing. The woman nodded, as if she had known that.

‘
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae
…’

‘In the name of Thor’s hairy arse, priest, shut up,’ Finn roared.

‘
Amén
,’ said Adalbert. Finn looked askance at the woman.

‘I meant no disrespect to the Thunderer,’ Finn added hastily and she smiled.

‘It is cold,’ the woman said. ‘I am going to the fire. When you are ready to talk, come and join me.’

She turned and walked off, confident and sure-footed, trailing her hands through the pack of Sami, who rose up and trotted after her.

‘You know this Thórgerth, Boomer,’ Orm said and Gjallandi jerked his eyes away from the woman’s retreating back and nodded, licking his big, firm lips.

‘She was the bride of King Helgi of Halagoland,’ he said, then shook his head. ‘That cannot be, for it was long ago, before the time of our grandfathers’ grandfathers.’

‘Perhaps she is that old,’ Finn muttered and made a warding sign. ‘She has the look, like the last leaf before winter.’

‘More than likely there is a sisterhood,’ Adalbert offered, ‘of which she is the latest. They all call themselves the same name.’

‘Like Christ nuns, you mean?’

Adalbert glared and denied it, but Crowbone shrugged.

‘I have seen such nuns, in the Great City and elsewhere. A sisterhood, who all seem to be called Maria.’

‘These heathens are not the same,’ Adalbert insisted.

‘A sisterhood? So you do not think anyone can be so old, Christ priest?’ Orm asked. ‘What of the one in your holy book – Methus … something?’

‘Metushelach,’ Adalbert answered levelly, ‘son of Enoch, father of Lamech. He died old – but he was one of God’s chosen.’

‘Which this witch clearly is not,’ interrupted a harsh voice and all heads turned to where Finn stood, glaring after the goddess of the Sami. He turned to Adalbert and astounded everyone.

‘Nine hundred, sixty and nine years when he died,’ he growled, then turned from astonished face to astonished face.

‘What? You cannot spend time in the Great City and not pick up a few things,’ he spat. ‘I had the saga of that old Christmann from an Armenian whore. Which is not the point. The sharp end of this affair is what we do now – that little fuck Martin had a plan, but I cannot fathom it. Unless it was to mire us in this place, surrounded by Sami and with no way out, in which case it is a very good plan.’

‘He laid a full-cunning plan,’ Orm admitted, his face quern grim. ‘I am thinking it was a Norn-weave of plot, but Martin does not have the skill of those blind sisters. I am thinking it unravelled a little in his hand.’

He stared, blindly thoughtful and spoke almost to himself.

‘Gudrod was meant to be here, not away with the axe – Haakon’s men were meant to secure that. All of us were meant to be killing each other and Martin, like a raven, would pick from the dead what he wants most in life. Not good enough, little priest – but many good northmen were wyrded to die in this affair and that must be answered.’

‘Where is the axe?’ demanded Crowbone and Orm blinked, then shrugged.

‘Orkney, if it is anywhere. The priest, too.’

‘Beyond us all if it is there,’ Finn agreed. ‘Even if we get out of this place.’

‘Aye,’ Orm agreed, which made men shift nervously and look about. The whole place, the situation, had them walking on dewclaws, looking to where the woman they had heard was a goddess sat beside the fire, to the Sami around her, to the woman again, who had stood up for some reason.

‘Do you want this axe for yourself?’ Crowbone demanded flatly and Orm fixed him with a silent, cold stare.

‘That is the second time you have asked me that,’ he answered coldly. ‘Do not ask it again.’

‘Will you help me against Gunnhild if I get us out of this place?’

Orm nodded with narrowed, questioning eyes and Finn snorted.

‘I will help you against Loki himself if you get us out of this place,’ he answered, with a lash in his voice that suggested it was beyond even Crowbone’s strange
seidr
.

Crowbone looked along the line of men and grinned; they grinned back, wolf snarls with no laughing in it at all and that only increased Crowbone’s delight, for he knew now how matters stood, knew it with the certainty of the next move in a game of kings, for he had seen the Sami goddess rise up from the fire and clap her hands, had seen what had delighted her.

He went to the fire and looked at the woman, who did not look much like a goddess now, with her mouth drooping a little and her eyes full of what she had seen.