In that short period of time over eight thousand people died and the wounded numbered in the tens of thousands, overwhelming the island’s surviving medical capabilities. Local hospitals were destroyed and because most of the roads had been washed away, help was slow to get to the region.
The sea water that had been dumped on the island slowly made its way back to the ocean, carrying with it a tide of corpses. Most of those who died were never found.
Chapter 16
Ragnarok put his ear to the ground and listened, but there was no sound of horses’ hooves striking the Salisbury Plain. Then he stood and scanned the night sky. The stars glittered back at him from a perfectly clear heaven. No cloaked Valkyries riding the wind. Of course, at the speed they had arrived the previous evening he knew they could appear in a few seconds and be on top of them. Then he would find out how Lailoken’s staff would work against the demon women.
He felt the power of this place. The stones were very, very old, aged beyond any Viking grave markers he had ever seen. He could sense the generations of worshippers before Penarddun and her kind, stretching back to an unknown people gathered here, worshipping Gods he had never heard of.
The bodies of the King’s men lay fifty meters away where the Valkyries had slaughtered them. The fact that the bodies had not been stripped of their armor or weapons told Ragnarok that no one had dared come near the strange stone structure during the day.
The condition of the bodies reinforced the legend of the Valkyries as the men had been maimed badly. Ragnarok had noted where armor had been sliced open as easily as a thin cloth shirt. There was no sign any damage had been inflicted on the Valkyries. Ragnarok knew it would not be long before the patrol was missed and other soldiers of the King came searching.
“I need the help of your Norse warrior,” Lailoken said to Tam Nok. They were standing around the memory stone, the towering formation of Stonehenge surrounding them.
Ragnarok stepped between Tam Nok and Penarddun and next to the old man. “What do you want me to do?”
“I will open the stone,” Lailoken said, “but I am too weak to lift it.”
Ragnarok simply wanted to be back on his ship. To feel the deck moving under his feet and the snap of the wind in the sail. The smell of salt water in his nostrils. Not to be standing in the middle of an English plain, the smell of cow dung in his nostrils, a chill wind blowing over hard stone the only sound. “Let us get this over with.”
“Put your arms around the stone,” Lailoken ordered.
Ragnarok grasped the cold stone to his chest, his knees bent. Penarddun had her hands raised to the sky, chanting in her native tongue. Ragnarok hoped she was appeasing whatever Gods ruled the stones now.
Lailoken lifted his staff up and slid the spear end into the small slit on the top. It fit perfectly, sliding down two feet into the stone. The old man wrapped his gnarled hands around the Naga on the other end and twisted. The staff turned smoothly. Ragnarok heard a noise, metal on metal and he could feel something move inside the stone. Penarddun’s chanting grew more earnest.
“Lift!” Lailoken ordered.
Ragnarok strained and the stone moved ever so slightly. He let the stone back down.
“Do you need help?” Tam Nok asked.
Ragnarok growled at her, got his feet under him better and lifted once more. He grunted as the stone smoothly slid up out of the hole. Ragnarok staggered back, then bent his knees, dropping the stone on the ground, upright, next to the hole. He kept a hand on it to prevent it from falling over as he straightened up. The stone was five feet high, the bottom flat. The part that had been buried was darker and smoother, protected from the elements. Looking at it, Ragnarok realized the stone must have been in the ground for a very long time. He could see two dark holes on the side where the lock must have been.
The old man and two women were on their knees around the hole, looking down into it. Ragnarok could see little as they blocked his view into the dark pit. However, he could tell that the pit was lined with something.
Ragnarok jumped back and yelled in alarm as a blue, unearthly glow suffused the memory stone. A beam of blue touched him in the chest, slid up across his head, then flashed to Penarddun. It quickly raked across her in the same manner, then went to Tam Nok. There it paused, locked on to the amulet on her chest, then bounced from there up to her head. She stood, transfixed for ten seconds, then the blue light snapped out and they were left in darkness once more.
Lailoken was the first to move, reaching out to Tam Nok and placing his gnarled hands on her shoulders. He peered into her eyes. Ragnarok had his ax ready, and he was staring at the stone like he would a snake, ready to strike it if something else happened. Penarddun was on her knees, hands over her eyes, muttering a prayer over and over.
Tam Nok’s blinked and shook her head. She placed her hands on top of Lailoken’s and nodded. “I see where I am to go.”
Lailoken released the Khmer woman and she turned back to the hole and got on her knees. Tam Nok reached down and pulled out a flat piece of metal from the very bottom. It was a foot wide by a foot long and so thin it bent slightly in her hand. Ragnarok had never seen such a metal. It looked almost like silver. Tam Nok tilted it so that the starlight reflected off the surface. Ragnarok could see lines etched on it.
Ragnarok shivered and he looked about. His view was limited by the large stones surrounding them, but there was nothing moving on the plain that he could see. Still, that didn’t mean there was nothing out there.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ragnarok recommended, his voice harsh and echoing slightly off the stones.
“Put the memory stone back,” Lailoken said.
The last thing Ragnarok wanted to do was touch the stone. Lailoken saw that and laughed. He placed his hands on top of the stone. “There is nothing to be afraid of. It is done.”
Ragnarok reluctantly put his ax down and wrapped his arms around the cold rock. He replaced it by the simpler method of scooting it over to the hole and dropping it down inside. It slid into the hole with a thud. Lailoken turned the staff, the lock clicked, and pulled the spear head out of the hole.
“I am done here,” the old man said. “It has been a very long time.”
Tam Nok had taken out her map and was comparing it to the metal plate. The etchings on the plate were a continuation of her scroll. Ragnarok knelt down and stared- there was a gigantic country to the west of Greenland. The coast stretched down and down to the south. Further than around the tip of France to the coast of Hispanola which he had talked to sailors about. Into the middle sea, the Mediterranean, where the Romans and Greeks had sailed. There was land below, stretching almost to the very bottom of the world. Ragnarok felt like a child, his expeditions to Iceland and Greenland of which he had been so proud, now appearing to be a child’s wandering from the village, rather than a warrior’s epic journey.
“What happened to you?” Ragnarok asked.
Tam Nok was focused on the map. “I was given directions. Where to find the shield. And what to do when I get there.”
Ragnarok looked up and noticed that Lailoken was walking out of the circle of stones. He tapped Tam Nok on the shoulder and pointed. She hurriedly put the map back in the bamboo, the metal sheet into her pack and ran after him.
“Won’t you come with us?” Tam Nok asked the old man.