Wolfsangel c-1 Page 21
Vali felt the certainty of death, calm and comforting, bringing with it the promise of an end to cares. Death felt like a warm bed he could climb into, like meat to the hungry.
There were entities in his mind — hostile presences, he thought. He felt displaced in his own consciousness, a tenant in his own head. There was a man, his presence felt fragile and he was fighting a woman whose mind seemed as deep and dangerous as the ocean. But the man was winning. He had taken something from the woman. Vali’s normal senses and thoughts could not understand what that thing was. It came to him as a shape, a cut in things, a cut in everything, a jagged slash in the fabric of creation.
Vali was in that tunnel again, the glow of the rocks like light through water, the air cold and heavy. The floor was flooded up to his knees. He looked to his side and saw a strange figure. It was a man in a stiff wolf mask, something constructed of wood and fur. In his hand was a shallow drum.
‘Why am I here?’ Vali’s voice sounded curiously muted.
The man in the mask began to beat the drum. Vali instinctively understood it was intended to summon something, something within him. The light seemed to ripple and he became aware of the shape again. It seemed to tremble from the skin of the drum, to hover, shake and pulse in front of his eyes. Destinies, he knew, were set at birth. The future was a path between mountains and you could not deviate from it. The legend of the Norns, the three women who sit beneath the world tree spinning out the fate of each human, had been impressed upon him since his earliest years. But now something was being offered to him. That shape, that awful, awful shape, something between a knife and a needle, to cut the thread of his life and restitch it, something hooked and sharp yet incorporeal — an idea more than a thing. The strange shape was a disturbance in the world that caused other disturbances. It was a rune. He could not see it now, but the thought of it seemed to float at the edge of his consciousness, like an idea remembered from a dream.
The rhythm of the drum seemed to command Vali and he had the strong urge to lie down in the water of the tunnel. He gave into it, leaning back and stretching out his arms, bending back his legs and sticking his head forward. Vali’s body contorted into the shape that seemed to capture his whole being, his whole destiny. The Wolfsangel. He now seemed just an expression of its meaning.
He understood that he was being offered a choice: this shape or no shape, the rune or death. And then, in his mind, he wasn’t the rune at all. He stood. The rune was the wolfman he had captured in the hills, floating there in the water of the tunnel. And then it was someone else. Adisla. She lay flat, her dress spread out around her, her arms wide and her legs bent in the same posture he had been. He seemed to be floating above her, or she beneath him, as if they were turning.
‘Darling, where are you?’
‘I am-’
‘This is the place.’ It was another voice. He had heard it before, he was sure. Yes, it was how that man in the shield wall had spoken, the strange pale fellow in the hawk-feather cloak. Had he been called by the drumbeat too?
‘What place?’
‘The place where you are lost.’
The drum seemed to shake him, to call forth something inside him. It had set something in motion, like the footstep that starts a landslide. A roar. It was a voice like he had never heard before — a choking, rasping expression of a wild hate.
Suddenly he was on the ground, and where Adisla had been was a huge, slavering wolf, much bigger than he was. The creature was tethered to a rock, lashed by thin cords that cut into its flesh tight as twine on a joint of meat. It struggled and thrashed to stand but couldn’t, like an animal trapped in the moment of its birth, the legs inadequate to its weight. Worse was its mouth, a gaping bloody wound kept open by a dull metal spar that dug into the flesh above and below.
A voice went skittering through his head, dry and quick as pebbles across rock: ‘When the gods knew that Fenrisulfr was fully bound, they took a cord called Thin and tied it to a rock called Scream. When the beast tried to bite the gods they took a certain sword and thrust it into its mouth so its jaws could not close. There the Fenris Wolf will lie between waking agony and tormented sleep until the last days. Then the fetters will break and the gods will be torn.’
The creature strained against its bonds, half rose, collapsed, staggered up and pushed forward again, the huge head gasping towards him. The sound of its torment was like iron on a smith’s stone but magnified a thousand-fold, a scraping, discordant note of anguish.
Vali felt a strong impulse of fear, not the fear of the shield wall or of battle — that can be bargained with, told that it will be listened to if only, just for a heartbeat, it will stand back. This was like the fear of drowning, of being buried alive, when the terror of extinction, of the hand of death blotting out the senses and stopping the breath, clamps down on you. All reason smothered by those constricting coils of panic, you will claw and tear towards anything, anything at all, your mind’s only ambition, your only coherent thought, ‘Not this, not this.’
Vali turned to run but the walls were now close about him. He was trapped in a little pocket of dim light within a smothering dark. The wolf’s agonies were like his own. He felt its yearning for freedom like stifling air sweeping over his face; felt its hatred of the tourniquet-tight bonds, the stabbing pain in his jaws. It was as if he was drowning, not in water but in the anguish of the wolf; as if the creature was consuming him, not with its teeth but with its mind.
He had to get out — to breathe, to live. His blood beat in his ears, or was it the drum? He looked up. The drummer was standing over him, the bone with which he beat the skin now in the shape of the jagged rune.
‘Help me,’ said Vali.
The drummer stopped drumming. Then he threw the rune towards Vali.
‘Become,’ he said. And Vali went wild.
Standing in the mire, Hogni was taken off his feet by a sudden kick of Vali’s legs.
‘He’s broken his bonds!’ shouted Orri to Jodis.
‘Then take up the rope and kill him!’
Hogni pulled tight on the noose, but it was too late. Vali had it in his hands and stood to pull hard on it. Hogni had coiled the rope about his body and was dragged towards the prince through the water, fighting to untangle himself. He was too slow. Vali was on top of him, howling and spitting, biting and punching. Bragi was on the bank and he leaped into the mire towards the fight.
Orri drew his knife and went for Vali’s back but hesitated for a fatal breath. This was the heir of his lord, after all. The prince seemed to sense the threat and turned to break Orri’s neck with a blow.
Jodis screamed as Vali went for Hogni again but now Bragi was on his back. Hogni got Vali’s legs and together the warriors bundled his thrashing body from the mire. Then there were others there, jumping on Vali, pinning him, holding him and choking him. They were Forkbeard’s men, and there, behind them, glowering in his full war gear of byrnie, helm, shield and sword, was Forkbeard.
Vali was hallucinating. He still saw the Rygir in arms but to him they were not understandable as men, just ciphers for pain and murder. It was as if he could taste their suspicion of him, their jealousies and their fears, as if all their emotions hung around them. Their feelings were like a scent he could breathe in; their many and several emotions, from larger hatreds to tiny animosities, were his to sense and name, as real and as many as the cooking smells on a feast day.
He struggled again and felt the noose go tight at his neck. He began to come back to himself, to realise who he was. Then everything vanished, and there was a different kind of blackness, a different cold at his back. He blinked, vomited water and opened his eyes. There was Hogni looking down at him.
He blacked out again for an instant.
‘Get him to his feet. Get this dirty murderer and kinslayer to his feet.’
He was pulled upright. Vali’s bones felt terribly heavy, like things excavated rather than lifted. Then he was staring into a familiar and furious
face.
‘You’ll pay for this,’ said Forkbeard. ‘I should have known never to trust the Horda. No wonder they sent you, their most useless son. Well, we’ll have your blood anyway. The prince wants death. Well, we’ll oblige him, won’t we, boys? Take the weapons from the other spies.’
Five spears were pointed at Bragi as Vali’s arms were pinned behind his back.
‘Get him down to the hall. I want the assembly there in short order. He can’t die without their say-so. This is not just an execution — make sure everyone knows that — it’s an act of war.’
Vali was kicked forward up the hill, still gasping and retching. His mind was full of what he had seen beneath the waters: the wolf, the cave, but most of all the memory of Adisla, himself and the wolfman, all twisted and misshapen under the influence of that dreadful rune. Their destinies were linked, he knew that, and the knowledge brought him comfort as well as dread.
24
Trial
There were voices raised against Vali’s execution. Arnhvatr said how he had organised the defence; Hakir spoke of his bravery in the line. But Forkbeard’s charges were strong ones.
The assembly took place two days after Vali had been taken from the pool, but the summons had travelled quickly and only those from the most distant farms did not attend. People were drawn into Eikund to hear of the Danish attack and to see the spy Forkbeard had caught.
The king was a blunt man and laid out his case bluntly. First, Vali had known of the raid and had called in the attackers when Forkbeard was away. Second, he had killed Drengi because of his jealousy over Adisla. That could not be denied, as the boy Loptr had seen him with the axe in his hand, standing over the body. He had also been heard on the Hogsback telling Drengi he should die. Third, when the enemy attacked he had tried to make off with a quantity of plate, a plan undone by the very people he was seeking to help. He knew that, though he had brought the berserks to Eikund, they would not recognise him in their rage and, fearful of their swords, he had fled. Fourth, in the wall he had refused to take up weapons and had even saved one of the invaders from death. When it became obvious his crimes would be uncovered, he had gone to the drowning pool to try to conjure magic to save his skin. An additional point, if additional points were needed, was that the traitor could even speak the language of the enemy. Why had he bothered to learn that, if not to trade with hostile powers?
Vali could not speak. His throat had clamped shut after his ordeal in the pool, and his mind with it. He had taken something with him from those waters, a pressure in his skull, a weight that seemed to make his head too heavy for his body. He had stepped close to something, he felt, something hidden within him, and had pushed the normal world away.
The assembly seemed to pass as in a dream, its significance not quite graspable. There were faces, some familiar, some unknown: hard-eyed farmers’ wives staring at him in accusation, warriors, some friendly, some inscrutable, some hostile. Many people were sympathetic to him but a battle is a crucible of confusion. Those at the port when the raiders arrived had no coherent picture of exactly what had happened. Forkbeard made sense of it for them — interpreted the actions of the day, named the heroes and the cowards.
Vali’s thoughts seemed obscured, glimpsed only in blurs, like the light of the day through the waters of a mire. He had never been so cold. He shivered and his flesh was pale and blotchy. The voices around him said it showed his weak-hearted nature.
Each man who had been with Forkbeard at the regional assembly said Vali was a coward and a turncoat. The warriors’ shame at being absent when the Danes attacked redoubled the venom of their accusations.
Forkbeard knew he had let his people down, been too easily deceived, lured into complacency by years of peace. He needed a scapegoat, and Vali — an outsider and a man who didn’t fit the heroic mould — provided him with one. Vali’s mistake had been that he hadn’t realised it wasn’t enough to act heroically. You needed to talk heroically too, show relish for arms and slaughter, not laugh at heroes and spend your time chattering with women at the hearth. When Vali had led the defence, deceived the berserks and won the victory, many could hardly believe the evidence of their own eyes. By the time Forkbeard had finished bludgeoning his message home, they didn’t.
Queen Yrsa had unwittingly endangered her son too. She made a mistake that Authun in his right mind would never have committed. Wary of the Danes’ capacity for deception, she had not gone to the regional assembly and doubled the watch on her shores. She had known there would be an attack on the Rygir but suspected the Danes might have more than one target or, if they were successful in Rogaland, would push on to Horda territory. The Horda’s absence at the assembly — not even a jarl was sent to represent them — was all the evidence Forkbeard needed.
Vali was a spy, said the king, a spy who had been placed in his court from his earliest years, accompanied and tutored in deceit by the scheming Bragi.
Vali’s old tutor was next to him, beaten and bound. Bragi shouted his denials but Forkbeard had him struck down. The vote was taken. It went badly. Vali was seized by Forkbeard’s guards and dragged outside.
A pit had been dug up on the hill, twice as deep as a man is tall and just wide enough to stop anyone wedging themselves against the walls and climbing out. Vali noticed none of this as he was thrown into it — just the fall and a sensation of breathlessness. The pit was wet. The rain had stopped but there was two fingers’ depth of water at the bottom. His clothes had been torn to nothing during his struggles in the mire and he was cold. Still he was exhausted and he fell into a dead sleep, dreamless.
Vali heard voices at the top of the pit. Argument and struggle. Then something large and heavy landed across him with a thump.
‘Bastards,’ said Bragi. Vali shoved the old man off him and he rolled away, cursing. ‘I have demanded a trial,’ said Bragi. He was fuming. He was indifferent to anything but the injustice he had suffered and, it seemed to Vali, had been complaining of it almost as he fell.
Vali glanced up at the square of stars above him and looked around him at the walls of the pit. He swallowed. There was an awful ache in his throat and one in his head to keep it company. He remembered how he had once stood on Bragi’s shoulders to gain access to the church. That was their way out of the pit. He was sure he could reach the lip to pull himself up. Did he have enough strength, though? A face appeared against the moonlit sky, almost as if on cue to render his question meaningless. There were guards. All he would get for trying to climb out was the butt of a spear in his face.
‘A trial is the least I am owed.’ Bragi was actually thumping the walls.
‘A trial?’ said Vali. His voice was rough and it was painful to speak.
‘Not that thing in the hall,’ said Bragi. ‘A trial by combat — holmgang, the proper way.’
‘You can’t challenge the king to fight. The assembly has decided.’ The prince spoke slowly and quietly to save his throat.
‘I have challenged him and he will provide a champion,’ said Bragi.
Vali leaned back against the wall. There was an acrid scent in his nostrils. He recognised it. Down on the beach they were burning the dead. Glimpses of what he had done came back to him.
‘I killed Orri,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I am a kinslayer.’
‘You were bewitched by the mire. And he attacked you, remember. He was coming for you with a knife at the time.’
‘You would make a good advocate before the lawspeaker,’ said Vali. ‘I killed him. He was my kin.’
They sat for a while. Vali tried to come to terms with his crime. He couldn’t. He deserved to die for that alone. Then he said, ‘If you win, you’ll be free. I suppose it’s as logical a way out of this mess as any.’
‘I knew you would see it that way, lord,’ said Bragi, ‘and I am pleased to say I have issued a challenge on your behalf, as your trusted vassal.’
Vali almost laughed but the effort hurt.
‘Leikr,’ said Bragi. Vali swallowed. Forkbeard knew his business. He meant him to fight Adisla’s brother.
‘And you?’
‘The berserk in the pay of the Danes.’
‘He lived then?’
‘Yes. Forkbeard has promised him his freedom if he defeats me.’
Vali looked at Bragi. He was an old man, really, still useful in a shield wall or on a raid because of his experience; in personal combat he would be no match for the berserk. Bragi had his tricks, his skills and his willpower. The berserk was in his prime, a giant and a war leader. Still, Vali was pleased for Bragi. He would die the way he would have wanted.
Bragi read what was on Vali’s mind.
‘It was the best I could do. Better this way than the rope, eh?’
‘I won’t fight Adisla’s brother,’ said Vali.
‘Then he’ll kill you.’
‘Yes. I deserve that for what I’ve done.’
‘And she?’
‘He’ll look for her.’
‘No. Forkbeard won’t let him. He’s declared her nithing, a sorceress and a force for evil, for the bad luck she has brought.’
‘Adisla is no more a sorceress than I am.’
‘Forkbeard says she is, that she was so envious of his daughter that she bewitched you and turned you against the people who have been your hosts for so many years. Do you know she killed her mother? It was seen, as the Danes approached their farm. She cut her mother’s throat.’
Vali breathed out and leaned back. What must it have taken for Adisla to do that? Her mother must have asked her to do it to deny the Danes the satisfaction of her rape and murder. Again Vali felt no tears, just that hollow empty feeling that he knew he could only fill with Danish blood. He imagined little Manni with his seax at the door, trying to defend his mother and sister, struck down by people who could easily have disarmed him and sent him on his way with a kick up the backside. Vali had never known such a cold fury inside him.