CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The day began in a grey smear. Ice-dust gusted across the snowbound fields. The cold had come. The deeper cold. Sparrows huddled in the crook of branches; horses stood shivering under byres, while the hall-folk hurried across the frozen yards back to the warmth of their fires.

‘Winter’s closing her fist,’ folk muttered in passing, and those same deathly fingers seemed to have taken hold right through Erlan’s bones. He had arrived back late the previous night, wearied from a long day’s ride from the south as escort. If anyone ordered him back in the saddle that day, they could go to Hel.

On his way to report for his daily duties, he saw a crowd of men jawing in front of the Great Hall. He stopped another karl striding towards them. ‘Is there special business today?’

‘You didn’t hear?’

‘Hear what?’

‘The king called an assembly of his sworn lords. Earls, thanes, the hird-lords – each with two karls. He speaks at noon.’

‘What will he say?’

‘If I knew that, he wouldn’t need to say it.’

As the karl walked off, Erlan heard hooves snap at the hard ground behind him. He turned to see two riders appearing from the Sacred Grove.

He recognized Earl Bodvar, wearing a jet-black cloak and his customary scowl. Pulling up before the growing crowd, the earl nodded a greeting. ‘Still alive, stranger?’

‘So it seems, my lord.’ He held Bodvar’s bridle while the earl dismounted.

Bodvar snorted. ‘Well, if Sviggar wants to take in stray dogs, that’s his business.’

‘How fares the Earl of Vestmanland?’ said Erlan, with a servile curl of his lip.

‘Badly. The king snaps his fingers and we must fall in like whipped pups. He cares nothing that a man’s arse could freeze to his horse in this weather.’

‘He seems to enjoy keeping you in the saddle.’

Bodvar gave a gruff chuckle. ‘That he does,’ he conceded. ‘And always when there’s business to be done at home. Damn miserable ride, too. And worse, one of my karls took sick on the road.’

‘That’s too bad.’ Erlan noticed Bodvar was eyeing him up and down.

‘Tell me – are you summoned to this thing?’

‘No. Only the high men and their karls, I heard. Errand-runners aren’t needed.’

‘Huh!’ Bodvar gave his beard a thoughtful tug. ‘Then you can stand in for my sick karl. He had a fever like a furnace. I’d lay he’ll not see out the week. Poor bastard,’ he added.

‘You want me to attend you?’ Erlan couldn’t conceal his surprise. Has he forgotten I came within a whisker of slitting his throat?

‘Well?’

‘I’ve duties to the king.’

‘Bah! My need is greater than the king’s. What say you?’

Erlan considered his offer. ‘I suppose I say yes.’

‘Excellent!’ smiled the earl. ‘You can begin by fixing some hot vittles and a drop of ale. I’m hungry as a hog.’

Erlan swallowed his pride for the thousandth time. ‘As you wish, my lord.’ As always, it tasted bitter.

It was well past the noon-mark.

Inside the Great Hall, the firepits burned high, but their heat didn’t travel. Ephemeral clouds of breath wreathed the broad shoulders and tight-woven braids of the assembled men. The highest men in the land.

Fifty small-lords with attendant karls stood murmuring, fidgeting with brooches or buckles, now and then glancing at the king’s council, who conferred in low voices on the platform.

All awaiting the king’s arrival.

At last, Vithar, the white-bearded relic who’d stood council to Sviggar and his father before him, shuffled into the hall and slammed his staff on the floor.

‘The old bastard likes to rattle his stick, don’t he?’ muttered someone. There were a few sniggers as their king entered.

The murmuring ceased. Sviggar came to the platform’s edge, scanning the younger faces below him.

‘You honour me to come at such short summoning. Every one of you,’ he began, voice coarse as gravel. ‘According to Sveär law, it is not the season for an assembly, yet you have come. I am grateful.’

He paused, weighing up how to go on. ‘It’s common knowledge now, how my son was taken from me. No father would outlive his son. No king, his heir. Yet I’m not alone in mourning an untimely death.’

Erlan glanced over Bodvar’s shoulder at the faces around him, but they were impassive as stone.

‘Many shed tears for kinsfolk. People cry out for fathers and mothers. For daughters and sons.’ He grimaced. ‘I am old, but I’m not yet deaf. Their cries have reached my ear. These very tables bear witness to many a strange tale. You’ve heard these for yourselves, doubtless. Vanishings. Murder.’ He spat the words like pip-stones. ‘Blood.’

His eye swept over the upturned faces. ‘And who is this enemy? Folk are taken from their halls and homesteads. They vanish on the road. Tell me. . . Who has done this?’ he suddenly hissed.

If he expected an answer, no one uttered a word. In the silence, Grimnar and his dark talk came to Erlan’s mind. The old seidman had an answer for this king. But now was not the time to convince these others of something Erlan could barely credit himself.

The king shook his head. ‘You do not know. And how could I summon men to fight an enemy I couldn’t yet perceive? My people bled, but this foe had left no trace. No one had seen them.’ The lines about his mouth tightened. ‘Until now.’ He turned to the guard by the entrance to his council chamber. ‘Bring her in.’

The guard vanished as a flurry of whispers rustled through the assembly, and reappeared clasping the armpit of a young girl. The little thing could hardly be six summers old. The guard shoved her towards the king, but she froze stiff soon as he let her go.

The sight of her silenced the voices immediately. Even for her age, she was small. She had tangled hazelnut hair and wore a rough-spun russet smock falling just below her knees. Her feet were bound in dirty cloths, and her bare calves were blotchy with cold.

‘Come nearer, little one.’ Sviggar’s voice was surprisingly tender. Her tiny features were rigid with terror, but she managed to shuffle towards the king. When she reached him, he took her and turned her to the crowd.

She coloured scarlet, as if her fresh, innocent face couldn’t endure the sight of so many grizzled, guilty ones.

‘This girl has seen our enemy!’ A murmur ghosted over the onlookers. ‘And only two leagues from this hall.’ He squeezed the girl’s shoulders. ‘Go on, child. Tell us again what you saw.’

But seeing it was her moment to speak, the girl was paralysed. Her eyes darted desperately for some hope of rescue, but when she saw there was none, she buried her face in her hands and bawled.

Sviggar stood by, looking awkward, unsure what to do. There were a few half-hearted suggestions from the crowd. But he quickly lost patience, and tried pulling her hands away from her face. Only she resisted him bravely, sobbing even louder.

With a last shake, he let her go. The girl dropped down and buried her head between her knees. Sviggar seemed at a loss when a figure appeared from the crowd and flew up the steps two at a time.

Erlan lurched in surprise.

How the Hel did he get in here?

‘Isn’t that your Gotar lad?’ observed Bodvar, drily.

Erlan nodded. Though what the mad little bastard was doing in the company of the greatest men in the land, he had no idea. But without even a glance at the king, Kai went to the girl, crouched beside her, and began whispering in her ear. Gradually her sobbing abated and she looked up to see Kai smiling at her. She wiped her nose. He whispered some more, and at last, she nodded.

Sviggar observed all this with waning patience. ‘Well?’

Kai murmured something and the king nodded. ‘Very good,’ he announced, ‘the lad will speak for the girl.’

And so he did.

Piece by faltering piece, Kai drew out the girl’s story, relaying each detail to the assembled men. The Shining Lake, the children’s game, her hiding place, her brothers’ approach. And then, the appearance of the killers.

‘They came from behind the trees,’ said Kai, crouching with his ear near the girl’s mouth. ‘She says they looked like ugly people. . . Kind of stooped. Long armed, but not exactly tall. They moved fast, without a sound in the snow at all.’

The girl lifted her hands, made them crooked. ‘Their hands were bent. Like claws. And their skin was very white. But dirty. She could see their hands because of what they did to her brothers.’ The girl burst into tears afresh. Only after more whispering from Kai did the assembly hear how the killers had snapped the boys’ necks like kindling.

‘She saw the face of one.’ Kai listened some more. ‘It made her afraid, she says. There were marks down its cheeks. And it had white skin, all cracked like a snake’s. She says its mouth was wide with teeth all black and sharp—’

‘All right,’ broke in Sviggar. While Kai had been relaying her description, talk had been swelling among the crowd. ‘That’s enough. Take her away.’

Kai hesitated, evidently wanting to stay and witness the rest of the meeting. ‘Now,’ commanded Sviggar.

‘Go on,’ urged Erlan, under his breath. Now wasn’t the time to irritate the king. Finally, Kai acquiesced and led the girl out through the council chamber.

‘The boys’ bodies were found hanging in a tree half a league from there, on the other side of the lake.’ Sviggar eyed the crowd. ‘They had been flayed. Their eyes, noses and tongues cut away.’

He turned to his councillors. ‘Lord Torkel, this happened on your land. Have you anything to add?’

A tall man with a long face and a wolfish nose stepped forward.

‘The Earl of Tundaland,’ Bodvar muttered. ‘And lord of the royal arse-kissers.’

‘Only that this time we found traces in the snow,’ said Torkel. The assembly stirred at this.

‘Can they be tracked?’ called someone.

‘I believe they can,’ Torkel answered. ‘There are visible tracks and signs of movement through the forest. I can’t say it’s much – and there’ll be even less if we have another snowfall. But there is something. . .’

‘Are these even men?’ called out a karl near Erlan. ‘What of the girl’s description?’

‘They sound like no men I ever saw,’ Bodvar remarked to Erlan.

‘No man can move across snow without sound,’ declared another. ‘How do we know these are the same killers as elsewhere, where there were no traces at all?’

‘Is the girl to be believed?’ asked a councillor.

‘She’s of sound mind,’ said Sviggar. ‘She described what she saw, best she could. Yet the like has never before been heard. Not even in the old tales.’

Vithar shuffled forward. ‘With respect, my lord, that is not true.’ He nodded his snowy head gravely. ‘There were once stories – though never told these days – which this child’s unhappy tale has dragged out of my memory. Even I have not thought of them since my boyhood.’

‘Well?’ demanded Sviggar. ‘Speak of what you remember.’

‘My father would tell of the Ragnarok That Was Not. It was during the age of gold, a time eight generations back or more, when Freya’s golden tears flowed like a river to this land. . . not like these days of scarcity. But without warning, a terrible darkness fell for three whole years. The sun was blotted out, and men said the Ragnarok had come at last. Thick mists choked the land. The air was filled with a pestilential dust. Nothing would grow without the sun’s light. Folk starved or slaughtered one another for the last scrap of food. The lords made gold offerings to the gods, pouring the last of their wealth into the earth in the hope that their fate could be turned – that the gods would restore the sun. Some said that the king even offered himself as a sacrifice.’ He shook his head grimly.

‘But there were many who gave up all hope that the world of men would survive. Instead they looked for another way out – away from the blackened skies and the terrible mists. They went down. . . down into the deep places of the earth to find some other way of living, taking with them their wealth and their women and children. However, after three failed summers and untold hardship and misery, the winds came and blew away the foul dust. The sun returned. That first summer, there was much gladness as the crops at last grew, and folk once more reaped a harvest. People went back to their living – poorer maybe, fewer, but glad to be alive. But of those other folks – those who went down into the depths – no one ever heard anything again.’

The old man had come to the end of his tale. For a time, no one spoke.

‘But they died, surely,’ said Sviggar, at length.

‘I know not,’ croaked Vithar. ‘Nor does any man. Perhaps they did not die. All I say is that this tale has risen in my mind.’

‘What the girl describes are like men. And yet not so.’ The speaker was another councillor, a grey-haired earl named Heidrek. ‘They move like draug-spirits, and have the appearance of fiends.’ A few groans rose from the crowd – Heidrek was not popular. ‘I may not have Vithar’s long memory, but I’m old enough to remember stories which the land wants to forget. Of man-killers. Unseen, except in the darkest of dreams—’

‘You sound like some old vala, Heidrek,’ interrupted Sigurd. ‘Talking of ghosts and fiends! Bah! I’ll wager they bleed and die like men. And what’s more, men of the Wartooth.’

The Wartooth’s name kindled the blood of the assembly.

‘Lord Sigurd,’ called Bodvar over the hubbub. ‘I’m curious. Tell us what it serves the Wartooth to skin two little boys?’

It was Heidrek’s turn to laugh. ‘Bodvar has the right of it. You call me an old woman, Lord Sigurd – well, I shall overlook the slander. There’s many a hall-maid would rather wrestle with this old woman than the whole pack of you younger men.’ An ironic cheer roiled through the crowd. ‘Be that as it may. There are shadows that roam of which folk know next to nothing. . . only stories.’ He broke off, cryptically.

‘What are you getting at, Heidrek?’ demanded Sviggar.

‘He means darklings.’

It was the first time Erlan had opened his mouth. The hall fell silent as all looked to see who had spoken. Then someone sniggered, another laughed, and soon a resounding jeer echoed to the rafters.

But the ancient Vithar rapped his staff for silence. ‘Many of you laugh,’ he squawked, casting a withering eye over the assembly. ‘But the worthy earl may have it right. Darklings, the stranger said. Aye, we’ve all heard the name. But what are these? Do you know?’ He jabbed his staff at one of the men who’d laughed the loudest. ‘Or you?’ he demanded of Sigurd. Neither man spoke. ‘You don’t answer because you don’t know. It is but a word. A name. A darkling might even be a kind of man! Who knows? You might use any word for a thing unknown – a thing dangerous and hateful. Is this not what we have here?’

The hoary old councillor drooped back against his staff, his anger spent. But no one laughed.

‘There’s another possibility,’ came a voice from the floor. ‘I hold nothing to our wise kinsman on such things, but can a man’s spirit not take on many forms?’

‘Who spoke?’ snapped Sviggar.

‘It is I, Arve, son of Asgeir.’

A spaced cleared around a stout man with a crooked nose looking up at Sviggar, eager as a hound. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Shape-shifters, lord.’

Another buzz of whispers.

‘More cursed sorcery!’ cried Sviggar. ‘I spent my youth standing in the shieldwall against flesh and blood. There was honour in that.’ He gave a bitter sneer. ‘Must I grow old chasing shadows?’

‘It may explain their appearance,’ said Arve. ‘Neither man nor beast, yet both at once.’

‘No,’ cut in Earl Torkel. ‘Shifters take one form or another, never some twisted concoction of both.’

Arve shrugged. ‘Perhaps you’re right. But if these killers take form at all, and are no mere shadows, we can kill them.’

‘And so we shall,’ said Sviggar. ‘Enough talk on this. The truth is we cannot say what they are. But we have their tracks. We shall hunt them. And destroy them.’

He beckoned the Tundaland earl. ‘Torkel, the trail begins on your land. It falls to you to find them. Wherever it leads, let nothing turn you aside. Choose three men and go quickly, before another snowfall comes. Who will ride with you?’

‘My brother, Torgrim.’ Heads turned to a man standing near Erlan. He had Torkel’s wolfish nose and angular brow on a younger face. The brother nodded assent.

‘The second is Handarak of the Sami blood. None in these halls knows forest-lore so well.’ Another man stepped forward: black-haired with a round face, narrow eyes, and cheekbones like polished oak.

‘Good,’ said Sviggar. ‘And the last?’

‘Sire, for the last, you make the choosing.’

‘As you wish.’

For a long time, the old king scanned the world-worn faces of his vassal lords and their karls. Erlan fixed his eye straight ahead. He thought of Grimnar and his strange mutterings. The seidman knew. He could see into this darkness. Had powers to wrestle with it. Erlan recalled how powerless he had been – a captive to the mystic’s slightest whim.

Strange. . .

Strange that around him he felt these men bulging with desperation for their king’s favour. Yet he felt nothing. No desire to see these deaths avenged. No part to play.

Just then, Sviggar’s eye alighted on him. When the king’s gaze lingered, Erlan tried to imagine what he saw. A stranger? A warrior? A gift from the gods? If so, Erlan knew now the price the gods paid in others’ blood to lavish their gifts on kings. Inga’s blood stained the gift in this king’s hands. But if Sviggar believed that he had been drawn there for some purpose, perhaps this was it. He felt his blood quicken.

But the king turned away.

‘I choose Arve, son of Asgeir. You leave today.’

The king stalked out, his councillors scuttling after him. Erlan watched them go, as the assembly broke up.

Why should I care? he thought, trying to dislodge the splinter of disappointment in his throat.

Did he envy a muscle-bound buffoon like Arve the chance of glory? Or the chance of his lord’s favour? Or even of the slaking of a thirst for vengeance? No, it was none of these.

It was something else.