CHAPTER FORTY

 

THE GROVE OF DEATH

 

Their approach was lined with tall, densely-packed trunks of pine and birch, the soil beneath their feet loose and mealy. On the face of it, these were undoubtedly more pleasant surroundings than the forests near Björnheim, but all were aware that they were in the realm of the black guards now. As they marched, drawing inexorably closer to the source of the evil that had afflicted them, the dead, portentous silence of the place began to weigh upon the company. Halldís, especially, became increasingly withdrawn and anxious.

Her mood infected them all. The forest was open to the sky above, but they were hedged around by the massive trees and the gigantic, primordial fronds of bracken that loomed in between. They were on their guard, alive to sounds of movement, but none came. There was no bird, no scurry of squirrel or shrew, not even the buzz of an insect - only the ceaseless sighing of the trees above them. It was a weirdly sorrowful sound, as if the entire forest were in mourning for the passing of its own life. For a time, in that strange realm, it was as if they were the last animate creatures upon earth - so much so, some even found themselves longing for the shambling presence of the undead.

The sight of a figure ahead made Gunnar start, and the company froze about him. Grey and skeletal, dressed in colourless rags, it stood motionless, framed by the trunk of a huge, rough-barked pine, its lipless mouth grinning without expression, its empty sockets regarding them in hideous silence. Bjólf made a movement towards it. It did not react. As he crept slowly forward, he saw that it was pinned to the tree by a series of rusty iron spikes - one protruding between the edges of its bared teeth. This was no death-walker - at least, not any more. It was the first sign of life they had encountered since their arrival here.

As they moved beyond that grim guardian, the soil became more gritty and dessicated. The monstrous ferns suddenly subsided, revealing that all around, as far as the eye could see, the forest floor was strewn with human bones. In stunned silence they picked their way past until the field of grim relics finally dwindled - none daring to point out the fact of the absence of even a single human skull. The bodies had been decapitated, the heads removed, by whom, and for what purpose, the troubled company could not tell.

None were sorry to leave that place.

Gunnar, intent in taking his mind off these gloomy matters, sidled up to Bjólf as they walked.

"I was thinking..." he whispered.

"Be careful with that," said Bjólf.

"About when this is all over. About that little farm somewhere..."

"Ah yes, with the barn and the woman."

"I was thinking, maybe Ireland."

Bjólf nodded appreciatively. "Very green. Lots of rain."

Gunnar shook his head. "But then I thought: too boggy."

Bjólf sighed deeply. "How about Scotland?"

"It's practically Norway these days."

"The Frankish kingdoms?"

"Maybe, but that would mean living among Franks."

"Normandy?"

"Bunch of fanatics."

"Russia then?"

"Full of Swedes."

Bjólf sighed again. "Sorry, old man, I'm running out of countries."

Gunnar raised his arms and let them fall in exasperation. "You see? It's hopeless. There must be somewhere out there a man can live in peace. All I ask is a small, sturdy house with a..." He fell silent. Ahead of them, just visible through the trees, as if his words had summoned it up, was a stout-beamed dwelling in a clearing. All drew their weapons. Shields came off backs.

Beyond the cover of the trees they could now see a whole complex of buildings, roughly arranged around a dusty courtyard of dry, barren earth, a circular space at its centre scorched and blackened. Dead leaves and ash blew across it. Somewhere, a door creaked in the wind. Everywhere there was an atmosphere of abandonment.

Bjólf signalled silently to his men; a nod briefly to left and right. Without a word, two groups, headed by Godwin and Finn, split off and headed out wide on either side. It was the tactic they had employed at Atli's village, and at many villages before that.

 

 

Atli looked around in surprise, uncertain what he should be doing, baffled at the way the men seemed to know Bjólf's intentions without being told. By the time he had realised what was happening, they were already gone. His place - by default, it seemed - was with Bjólf, Halldís and the rest.

They approached the courtyard slowly, warily, passing the open entrance of the timbered house as they did so. Gunnar investigated with silent efficiency, shaking his head as he emerged. Through the open doorway, as they moved on into the open space beyond, Atli glimpsed the same signs of long abandonment that had been evident back at Erling's farm. They kept moving, the only sound the wind gusting through empty spaces, punctuated every now and then by one of Finn or Godwin's men as they investigated the dank interiors upon either side.

The buildings themselves were strange to Atli's eyes. Some had evidently once been ordinary farm outbuildings, probably of the same age as the abandoned house, but had since been crudely adapted or expanded, sometimes employing materials that he could not identify. There were flat, square roofs; iron rods held together with wire and metal pegs; patches of rust grinning through crumbling plaster and peeling paint; featureless partitions of wood that had warped in the wet and were splitting apart; ragged, thin materials hanging in shreds over open windows. Although these ugly features were clearly more recent than the buildings upon which they had grown, they gave a bizarre impression of more advanced decay. The mere sight of them filled Atli with a feeling of dread.

Ahead, he could now see that the large, blackened area had been the site of an immense fire - perhaps a succession of fires. Strange, lumpy remains - part-consumed fragments of wood, odd bits of twisted metal, and what looked like charred bits of bone - were strewn about its ashy centre, seemingly covered in a dark, oily residue. Bjólf stepped carefully into it, felt the ground, and picked his way back out. Finn and Godwin emerged from the last of the outbuildings and shook their heads.

Bjólf picked up speed, moving towards the two larger buildings that lay directly ahead of them. One looked to be a huge barn - long, like Halldís's hall, but with an entirely straight roof and constructed from thick boards through which the wind whipped and howled. To the right of it as they approached, directly opposite, was a smaller and very different kind of structure; low, squat and square and built of uniform grey blocks, with slits for windows. Bjólf stood in the wide gap between the two, looking to one, then the other, then ahead towards a further, smaller clearing beyond, lined with trees. As he caught up with the rest of the company, Atli peered through the huge open doors into the vast, dark space of the barn. At the far end was another doorway, also open, beyond which was dense forest - yet far enough from the opening to admit a dim light. The interior seemed to be divided up into stalls - for animals, he supposed. Whatever they were, they were now long gone.

Opposite was the door to the grey, squat structure, and different from almost every other door Atli had seen here in two important respects: with its heavy planks and thick iron straps it appeared substantial enough to contain wild beasts. And it was closed.

Bjólf looked at Gunnar. "What do you think?"

"I'm trying not to," said Gunnar. "This place... It's like nowhere I've seen. And it has a bad smell."

Bjólf nodded and said to Halldís. "Do you know this place?"

She merely shook her head, her expression troubled, as if the little she knew from the last few moments were already more knowledge than she could bear.

"Well..." began Bjólf. But before he could say another word, a sound made all of them turn. It was the chink of metal on metal, clear and distinct, from somewhere behind the heavy, closed door.

Bjólf approached slowly and silently, and put his shoulder to the door. It resisted, but shifted a crack. Not locked. Gunnar and the others stood with weapons and shields ready. Bjólf shoved with all his strength. The great door scraped half open before grinding to a standstill. Inside, all was black. The sound came again, louder this time. The air that wafted from inside was heavy with the stench of death-walkers.

Bjólf began to creep inside, Gunnar following close behind. Atli had moved up close to Bjólf, and found he was next in line. He faced a choice: follow behind Bjólf and Gunnar, or stand back and let Fjölvar or Halldís pass. He clenched his teeth and plunged in.

Inside, their eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom. Ahead was a straight corridor with several doorways off it, about which rubbish was scattered, and here and there pools of water into which an occasional drip fell. The chink-chink came again, echoing from somewhere deeper inside. As they crept on, they saw that the doorways - through which the only light filtered - were not all wide open as they had initially assumed. Their doors were fashioned from bars of iron: some half open, some seemingly locked shut, but all coated with a fine film of rust. Each chamber had a single slit for a window. Some had damp straw upon the floor, and others were entirely empty; in several, chains hung from the walls. That was the source of the sound they had heard.

 

 

It came again, now much closer. Bjólf raised his weapon, moving between the last two doorways. The door to the right - of heavy wood, like the first - was wide open. Beyond was a very different kind of space from the other chambers; still dark, but expansive, cluttered with furniture, at its far end a great, baffling, bulbous shape like a vast, enclosed pot that, as far as Bjólf could see, appeared to be constructed entirely of blackened metal.

The sound came again, directly behind him. He whirled around, sword ready. As he advanced into the opposite room, he heard a shuffling. Another chink-chink. The chamber, like the others, was dark, a shaft of daylight piercing through the slit in the wall, blinding him now to what lay in the deep shadows. He sensed a presence to his right, and turned to face it. For a moment he stood motionless, listening intently, trying to make his eyes penetrate the darkness, to make sense of it. From within the room, out of sight, came a weird, low cry that chilled him to the bone. A cry that was like two cries, in an eerie chorus. Then, with sudden violence, a figure lurched forward out of the gloom, flying at his face. He leapt back - it stopped dead at the limit of its chains, in the full glare of the light, the taut links ringing in the clammy, sickening air.

Bjólf reeled back all the way to the far wall. Seeing his reaction, Gunnar stepped in, ready to fight, followed closely by Atli and Halldís. All gaped at what they now saw. "Gods..." whispered Gunnar, a quiver in his voice.

That it was a death-walker was clear enough. Its flesh was grey and in an advanced state of putrescence - at certain points (its manacled wrists, its damaged knees, the fingers of its clawing hands) turning to the black slime that had become all too familiar. In its empty hideousness, its face, too, confirmed all their expectations of such a creature - the dead, fish-like eyes, the expressionless, lolling mouth, the collapsed, decaying wreck of a nose - all slipping away, by slow, inevitable degrees, from the skeletal foundation beneath.

What raised the sight to a new level of abomination, however, was not any aspect of its deteriorating condition. It was the way in which it had been altered. There, next to that rotting, vacant face - also, impossibly animate, yet with flesh that seemed somehow closer to the bloom of life it had once possessed - was a second head, the neck sewn crudely into a cleft at the side of the first, the stretched, wrinkled flesh, all along the join, glistening and dripping a pustular yellow. And whereas the first face conveyed nothing but the expected blank emptiness, the second, it almost seemed, stared back at them with its own expression of pained horror.

It began to utter another cry. Before it could complete it, as if unable to tolerate the sound, Gunnar stepped forward and smashed it down with two decisive blows.

For a moment, they stood in shocked silence. Then, slowly, as if by some instinct - as if in need of answers to the questions that now troubled them - they moved one by one into the last of the rooms: the large chamber opposite.

The cluttered interior was dominated by a number of broad, flat tables, some of which were darkly stained, others covered with strangely-shaped objects - tools of metal, containers of ceramic and glass, some broken. Rarely, if ever, had Bjólf seen such a wealth of glass in one place. Other detritus lay scattered about the floor, unidentifiable in the gloom.

Slowly they moved through this alien environment, trying to grasp its purpose - or perhaps, simply, trying to believe it. After all, there could be little doubt as to the cause of the dark stains on the great, slab-like tables. Ahead, the huge iron ball loomed. As they approached, the stench of the place - already unbearable - intensified. From its top, a kind of chimney extended up and through the roof. At its front, they now saw, was a thick iron door into its interior. Inside, traces of ash. And, Bjólf thought, bits of bone.

Atli stepped forward and peered into the large, trough-like container to one side of the great cauldron and started back in revulsion. It was filled with severed limbs in various states of decay.

Bjólf looked at Gunnar, his expression dark. "We should leave this place," he said.

"I agree," said Gunnar.

But as they turned to go, Halldís caught Bjólf's arm. "There's something in here," she whispered. They stood in silence, not daring to move, until they heard a movement, somewhere back near the door, in the shadows. They looked, but could see nothing. Again it came - a strange, scuttling sound. It was heavy. Large. Yet, in the shadows - less murky here than in the previous chamber - no figure could be detected.

Gunnar turned this way and that, trying to follow the sounds. "It must be an animal," he said.

"But there are no animals," said Bjólf.

 

 

Atli, hearing another scurrying movement, turned to his right, peering along a row of benches. There, appearing from around the corner of one of the tables, was a low, large shape. He tried to shout out as he looked upon it, but could not. Instead, he simply pointed, staggering backwards, a strangled, incoherent cry escaping his lips.

It was enough. Bjólf, Gunnar and Halldís were around him, blades raised in readiness as the thing crept into the light on its awkward limbs. Where they expected to encounter the face of some wild creature, they saw in its place another once-human visage, another lost soul.

It took all of them a few moments to comprehend what they were looking at. At first it seemed it must simply be an injured death-walker, crawling forward upon its hands. Then the ghastly truth became apparent. The thing had no legs - nothing, in fact, below its waist. But grafted to its torso, in the same crude manner as the two-headed monstrosity in the previous cell, and carrying it along like some grotesque, oversized insect, were two more pairs of human arms. Sensing living flesh, it suddenly gave a hideous cry and darted forward with a horrible scampering motion, its teeth bared. Bjólf and Gunnar set upon it without hesitation, smashing the thing with axe and sword until it was unrecognisable.

They did not linger in that place any longer. All four of them hurried back into the daylight, gasping for fresh air.

Halldís wiped at her brow, deathly pale. "Someone... did that to it..." she said, falteringly. "Some human hand..." But such horrors were beyond words.

Atli, his head spinning, wished only to put as much distance between that building and himself as possible. His legs wanted him to run. Instead, he stumbled away as far as he dared, towards the entrance of the great barn, trying to pull himself together, his stomach heaving.

As he returned to his senses he looked about him, peering the length of the huge building, with its rows of stalls on either side. He walked in, looking at the vacant cells as he passed, the freshening wind a welcome relief. They had seemed like they were intended for animals. That was what they all assumed. But were they? He did not know any more. It seemed the distinction between human and animal, once so clear, was suddenly foggy and obscure. This, then, was the masters' ultimate achievement: the annihilation of humanity.

He turned, realising he should get back to the warband. But as he did so, a dark shape - silhouetted in the open doorway at the far end and framed by the foliage beyond - caught his eye. It was familiar and unfamiliar; something he immediately recognised, but which felt entirely out of place.

A dog.

He turned back and squinted at it, trying to make out its features, wondering how on earth it could have survived all this. It staggered forward as if exhausted, its head low, then stopped. Perhaps there was hope after all. Perhaps there was life here, fighting back. As he watched, another, almost identical shape appeared, its movements similarly stiff and slow. He smiled to himself, debating whether he should go towards them, bring them back to show the others.

Then three more padded slowly into view.

Atli felt a chill run through him. He cursed his idiotic mistake.

Not dogs. Wolves.

He began to back away from them, suddenly struck by the terrible memory of the ravens at Ægir's Rock, not wishing to turn his back. But as he did so, one moved forward. The others did the same, their movements loping and awkward, and then all of them broke into a run. Before he turned, he just had time to see their red eyes, their matted fur, their gaping, ragged wounds, before hurtling headlong back towards the doorway. He could hear them now, pounding behind him, drawing closer, a low mournful moan coming from the throat of each one. Ahead, one of the double doors blew closed, slamming in the wind. Atli put on a last burst of speed, knowing that wolves would be faster, hoping that death had at least slowed them. With their yellow-toothed jaws snapping at his heels, he flew through the open doorway and onto the ground.

As he did so, a shield struck the leading wolf in the face, sending it backwards. The doors closed violently on the neck of the second, which struggled and howled, before a foot booted it back and slammed the doors shut. Atli looked up to see Bjólf towering over him, his shoulder against the doors, the creatures snarling and scratching in a frenzy on the other side.

"Don't wander off," Bjólf said, and shut the bolt. Then he turned to Fjölvar. "Go and close the other door," he said. "There's enough to think about without these prowling around." And away he walked.

 

 

Halldís, meanwhile, stood pensively at the edge of the second clearing, considering what now lay beyond. There were no more buildings, no more features of any kind, save the opening of a rough pit in the dry, gritty earth a little way ahead. Past that, the dirt gave way to grass and weeds, a narrow dock with a jetty, and a thin line of trees - the last barrier that stood between them and the fjord. Beyond, across the gently rippling water, sparkling in the sun, she could just make out the dark shape of the island. Gandhólm, island of the sorcerors. Island of Skalla, and of Skalla's masters. As she stood, her future before her, her past behind, she suddenly felt overwhelmed by a deep, all-encompassing sense of despair. Suddenly, she wished only for her tears to flow without end, for her throat to give unrestrained voice to all her for torment, for her legs to give way and the earth to swallow her up so she might sleep forever. She fought to dismiss it, telling herself it was merely horror at all the horrors she had seen. But it would not be so easily dismissed. For the first time, she found herself wondering whether she would ever see her home again, whether, after all this, things could ever go back to the way they had once been.

"We made it," said a voice beside her. It was Frodi.

"This is only the beginning," said Halldís, staring into the distance.

"We will make an end of it," said Bjólf, emerging from the knot of men with Gunnar at his side.

"One thing," muttered Gunnar, a deep frown upon his face. "Where are the death-walkers? The normal ones? I thought this forest would be crawling with them."

"Perhaps even they cannot stand this place," said Bjólf. Deep down, however, the question was also troubling him. Standing next to Halldís, he turned to look upon her delicate face - and saw her frowning.

"What is it?"

"Do you hear something? A kind of rattling?"

Bjólf listened. "Atli found some pets in the barn," he said.

"No," said Halldís. "From over here." She walked across the clearing, Bjólf following close behind. As the wind changed, they heard a strange, ceaseless noise, like hard rain upon the deck. No, more like lots of hollow objects being knocked together. But it was impossible to place precisely. She veered towards the pit, and Bjólf followed. The sound grew louder. They drew up to the edge and peered down, Gunnar and the others closing up behind them.

At the bottom of the pit, deeper than the height of a man, a mass of human heads were piled up, covering its floor, their jaws still snapping, over and over, in a never-ending quest for flesh.

Halldís swayed. Bjólf steadied her, drew her back.

"Is there no end to this?" muttered Gunnar from the pit's edge.

"We will make an end," said Bjólf grimly.

Then, from the far edge of the clearing, Finn hissed a warning. A black boat was coming.