26

 

“He is getting worse,” Erlend said. “I fear he will soon be going to Valhalla.”

Ulrik spat on the ground. “It is no way for a warrior to die.” He stalked off across the field, anger making his arms shake.

Stig lay on a makeshift bed they had created with a heap of branches nestled between two piles of rubble and rock, near the middle of a large open field. It had been a long time since they had come across a solid structure. The day was overcast and raining on and off, with the bitter chill behind it, souring moods and implying winter would not be long in coming.

The man lying before Val had lost several pounds, and his skin had turned a pasty yellow. The hue nearly matched the heavy strand of snot that dribbled out of his nose, and the chewy mouthfuls he frequently spat aside.

Despite the midday time, he was trapped in deep sleep. Their travel time, even with Stig strapped to the rear seat of the doubled-up ATV had been cut to just a few hours each day. The man was not well enough for more.

None of the others had developed the sickness, and they debated whether it was a result of the injury to his ribs. The broken bones had begun to mend, and there was no longer a discolored bruise on his chest. But there was no denying his weakness or the non-stop production of mucus.

The nightly discussion also touched on radiation sickness or tainted pork meat—but in both scenarios, they would all be ill. Anders was suspicious of Ull and his supposedly benevolent gifts. But Val had again pointed out to the bowman that they had all eaten the meat, and no one else had contracted the sickness—and they had not needed gifts from their follower since the pigs.

Whatever the cause, hearty, robust Stig was dying, and it would not take long. The man rolled on his side and instead of spitting out a mouth full of heavy mucus, he simply opened his mouth in his sleep and let it drool out.

Erlend turned away at the sight. They didn’t have anyone skilled in medicine, but he did his best to treat the man he had befriended on the journey.

“Do what you can for him,” Val said, understanding this might be the last day Erlend needed to tend to his patient.

She walked a short distance away across the field, the grass sliding past her shins. She had seen a wooden fence set twenty feet inside the edge of the forest. In twenty more years, the seeds from the trees at the edge will have filled this clearing as well. Ulrik had stalked off a good distance, but the others—Anders, Nils, Morten, Erlend and Oskar—were huddled in a group and talking. As she approached them, they stopped speaking, each avoiding her gaze.

“I am not stupid,” she said. “It makes sense to discuss putting the man out of his misery, even if it is not a pleasant topic.”

Relief washed over Nils’s face, and she knew that was precisely what the men had been discussing. She knew Ulrik would have no part in such a topic. He would not even consider it. Val had already accepted that Stig was dying. She had accepted that they would be unable to stop the progression of his illness. Her thoughts had already moved on to making sure no one else contracted the strange sickness, and to surviving the encroaching winter.

Morten ran a hand through his unwashed hair, his slicked-back look returning with natural greasiness. “This place is not good, Val. We need to move from here. We are all agreed.”

“What would you suggest?” she asked. She would not make it easy for them.

Oskar turned away, and Nils looked down at his feet. The answer surprised her when it came instead from Anders, the quiet hunter. “We should just kill him and move on. The pork will not last forever, and the winter snows will soon be upon us. Nils has shown me the maps. If we do not get through the mountains to the south soon, we would be better served by going to the west, through France.”

“That would be well out of our way,” Morten said, suddenly concerned. Val was surprised to discover that he knew the route at all. He had clearly also studied the maps, although she had never seen him display any interest in them.

“The mountains are a vast boundary to the south,” Anders added. “Crossing them, even with the ATVs, will be a challenge. Doing so in the winter would most likely lead to more death.”

“The mountains—they are called the Alps—extend down into France, as well,” Val pointed out.

“Not all the way to the coast of the sea,” Anders countered. “We could then travel into Italy along the shore.”

Val had spent a long time calculating the route with Nils and Halvard back in Stavanger, before they had departed. She had first proposed the sea route herself, but Halvard had warned against it. She knew little of Europe, or the few peoples still living here, but Halvard had assured her that there were, according to his scientist friend, still plenty of pirates on that sea. ‘And the south of France is to be avoided at all costs,’ he had told her.

“We will give Stig until the end of this day. If he is not recovered, we will give him the option of being left behind, or having us end his life. We will not make that decision for him. He has earned that much from us and far more.” Val started to walk toward Ulrik.

“And the mountains?” Morten called to her.

A loud cough interrupted them. Then, “What mountains? I am ready for them.”

All eyes turned to see Stig, standing next to Erlend, and shaking off a helping hand. His beard was crusted with dried snot, but he had a light in his eyes. He looked better than he had in days.

Then his chest erupted in five bursting gouts of red, spraying his blood out into the grass. The unexpected sight was accompanied by the loudest mechanical shattering sound any of them had ever heard.

Only Nils knew what it was. “Get down!” he screamed. Then he threw himself to the grass, and the others followed his lead as Stig’s suddenly perforated body toppled forward. Another burst of fire from the automatic weapon strafed the field, and then abruptly stopped.

Voices shouted in German.

“Scheisse. Es ist kaputt.”

“Sei still, Narr!”

Nils translated to the men on the ground, and Val could just make out what he said from her distance.

“Shit. It is jammed.” “Shut up, fool.”

“Nils, what in the name of Heimdal’s horn was that weapon?” Morten hissed, from his place in the grass.

“It shoots metal pieces very fast and very far. A machine gun.”

“It ripped through Stig and we never saw the man using it,” Oskar said. “How can we fight that?”

“We cannot,” Nils said. “But the weapon is broken. Perhaps only temporarily. Let us hope it is the only one they have.”

“So we should stay in the grass, Nils?” Val called out across the field.

But their new opponents answered for him. A group of the men came running across the open field toward where they lay in the grass. The men were bald, and they wore dark pants and boots, but their huge chests were bare, and covered in raised scars that formed patterns and decorations like tattoos.

But their heads were the most unusual thing—the men had no ears. Just open holes. The lumpy, mismatched scar tissue suggested the ears had been cut off. The men wore either black make-up that covered their bald heads—or else the entire head had been tattooed black, with just small patches of untouched skin at the throat, back of the head, and on the sides.

More threatening than the makeup, the men running through the field’s shin-high grass carried a long, slim knife in each hand.

“So, no more of the machine weapons,” Val said, scrambling to her feet. The others stood up behind her. “Time to avenge Stig.” Then she ran toward the men with the knives, pulling her ax from its holster.

As she halved the distance between her and the black-headed men, before her comrades had even begun to chase her, two more groups of tattooed attackers entered the open field.

Instead of turning away, Val only sped up.