TALLOS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tallos drew an arrow and fumbled trying to nock it when a massive thud reverberated through the ground, ending the noise of crashing branches. Their group sat petrified in the silence that followed, even the dogs—such a noise was not made by the footfalls of any prey dogs could hunt. Even Tallos, who now knew the sound had to be from something having fallen from the bluff, was gripped with the childish vision of a giant cyclops charging and slamming a mighty fist into the ground, spurring him to run. But if Northmen above were pushing boulders off the edge of the cliff, it was likely in the hopes of prodding them to run so they could be picked off by arrow fire.

“One’s gone,” shouted Jegson. Tallos wanted to backhand the boy for being so loud, but it seemed he had come to the correct conclusion before the others. “The fecking Northman’s dead!”

Indeed, it appeared there was one less dark shape clinging to the bluff above.

“Keep quiet,” Tallos said between teeth clenched in anger, “and move slowly to where he fell.”

It was a rather small Northman from the looks of him, but Tallos reasoned they came in all sizes. The body was face down, pressed into the ground, bent and smashed in unnatural angles.

“He’s dead all right,” said Jegson, quietly but with plenty of mirth. His dogs were the first to the body, sniffing hungrily, snarling and snapping at each other as if competing over the carcass.

Three dogs were two too many…perhaps three too many if they were fed the flesh of men. The accusation was never spoken aloud, but there were some who wondered how Megan’s parents kept their dogs from starving during times of famine when even their own household members fell dead from malnourishment. Watching Jegson’s dogs so eager to get to the body brought a wave of sickness to Tallos and likely to the others as well.

Tallos glanced at Lia, feeling somewhat guilty that he was looking to see if she shared in the other dogs’ excitement. Seeing her first human corpse, however, had had a much different effect on the old girl. She looked distressed, as if she knew something the others did not.

Jegson pulled his dogs back violently, unsheathed his dagger, then plunged it into the Northman’s back with a triumphant laugh. Tallos was about to scruff the boy when Lia lunged ahead of him, grabbing Jegson’s knife hand by the wrist and shaking back and forth.

“Lia, no,” Tallos shouted, running to grab her before Jegson’s dogs, still frozen from the shock of it, realized they could easily take her. Lia had never bitten a person before, but Tallos had no time to contemplate what had driven her to attack an ally.

Lia released the boy as Tallos approached, but her agitation was far from finished. She remained close to Tallos’s knees, still bristling, as Jegson’s own dogs began to circle them.

“I’m bleeding!” Jegson had an incredulous look that soon turned to outrage. “I’ll have your mut—”

He was interrupted by a familiar crashing through the trees above, followed by a heavy thud. The second body fell only paces away from them, hitting the ground legs first and folding back onto itself at the knees and waist. Crumpled like a ragdoll, the cracked head oozed blood onto the soft, green moss below.

The eyes of the body were wide open, yet the mouth or some hole in the skin was making a noise like air leaking from a bellows. Tallos was given to a moment of fear at the thought that this Northman might still be alive and able to harm them, but it was not so. This was another body, but one too small to be a raiding Northman. Tallos thought he recognized the puny man, but the skin on his face was so badly bitten by frost that its gross red and black colors masked the likeness.

Erik fell to his knees and began to heave up his dried meat and berries. He was the first of the men to recognize the bodies were those of John and Jarl, his two eldest sons.