Soon, they reached the high-hill river valley, long and slope-sided as if scooped in a trench from the earth. Above it rose rugged peaks, white-topped the year ‘round. The river itself, fed by many more rushing creeks, flowed fast and full. Stones and boulders littered the ground, strewn like pebble-pieces of some giant’s game.
Clouds drifted in. The day, not warm to begin with, cooled and grew damp. Mists whirled in ghostly skeins along the water. The horses’ breath billowed steamy vapor. Men and women pulled their cloaks more tightly around their bodies; beads like dew-drops collected on the fur trim of hoods.
The red banner hung limp and dispirited from its pole. Stefnir, Kjarstan’s nephew, swiped moisture from his forehead and wrung it from his fair hair, then cursed as some trickled down the nape of his neck.
The talk, laughter, jokes and singing dwindled. Soon they went on in silence, a sodden silence broken only by the plodding squish of hooves, the creak of straps, and the faint jingle of mail.
The mists thickened. Or a fog rose. Or the clouds lowered. Or all of those, together and combined. The world turned to greyness, dreary and blurred. The snow-peaks vanished, the land lost its edges, the trees faded to suggestions, and the boulders became indistinct. The river, off to their left, was a liquid whisper more felt than heard or seen.
“Stay close,” said Kjarstan, his voice both oddly loud and oddly muffled. “No one goes straying, no one gets separated.”
So he said, but when each of them could only see a few horse-lengths to either side, such words proved less than reassuring.
“It will clear soon,” Kjarstan added. “If it does not, or this Hel’s-gloom worsens, we’ll stop for a while and wait it out.”
The horses trudged on, heads low, manes and tails dripping. Everything smelled of wet wool and leather. Unwelcome thoughts insinuated their way into minds. Hel, as Kjarstan had mentioned… Hel, goddess in whose bleak realm resided the miserable dead who had not won their way to Valhalla…
Someone did try to bolster their spirits with another song, but the sound of it was a dirge and was soon let trail away. The silence returned.
Stefnir gripped the banner-pole with a half-numb, clammy hand. His other held the reins, though slackly, his horse following that of Rikolf, just ahead.
How suddenly their moods had changed… how distant in memory seemed the smoke and hearth-fires and cheer of the hall… or the fervor of riding to battle… how far and distant and impossible…
His horse stopped. Stefnir saw that Rikolf’s had stopped as well, though he could barely make out more than its hindquarters. Not even Rikolf’s red cloak was visible.
From somewhere behind him came a sudden low gasp, or cough. Stefnir turned his head, but only grey fog and vague shapes met his gaze. He opened his mouth to call a question — was everyone all right? — but his skin prickled with unaccountable gooseflesh before a single word passed his lips.
With his knees, he nudged his horse a few paces forward, meaning to bring himself up alongside Rikolf. He would ask the older man before bleating like some frightened little lamb–
Rikolf’s saddle was empty. His horse only stood there, head down, reins dangling.
A cry wavered out of the mist — a woman’s cry — over almost as soon as it began. He heard a man’s grunt, and a thump.
His nerves shrieked.
“What is it? Who’s there?” he shouted.
No one answered.
“Kjarstan?”
There still was no answer.
“Anyone!?”
And still, no one answered.
The silence returned again.
The silence returned again, and was complete.
Kjarstan would not, would never, break his oath.
This, Udr Udarsson knew as well as he knew his own name, and the names of his father and grandfather before him. This, he knew as well as he knew his own heart.
The very implication was an insult, the kind of insult only answerable by blood. To suggest Kjarstan had not only broken his oath but utterly betrayed his king and kindred by joining with that yellow piss-dog, Gunnleif? For that, even blood would not suffice.
Yet, when the expected day of arrival came with no sign of his banner… when a second day passed the same, and a third… when possible explanations for delay wore thinner and thinner…
What else were men to think?
Udr and Anbjorn told them what to think.
“If Kjarstan is not yet come as promised,” they’d said, “it is because some ill fate or fortune has befallen!”
They, two of Kjarstan’s best and most loyal warriors, had accompanied King Jorfyn’s messenger to Langenvik as proof of intent. Their earl — their friend, and war-brother! — would not lightly cast them aside as hostages.
“On my life, I so swear it,” Udr had said. “On my life and my sword.”
“Both of which,” a dour old lord called Olla had retorted, “will fast be forfeit if you are proved false.”
“It is that misbegotten whoreson Gunnleif you should give blame,” Anbjorn said. “If his dogs struck Kjarstan by surprise in the hills—”
Back and forth they had argued — Jorfyn’s advisers voicing their doubts, Udr and Anbjorn their protestations. Finally, with harsh words about to turn to harsher blows, the king intervened. A small group of swift riders, he declared, would go out in search of Kjarstan’s missing men. A dozen, no more. To seek sign or answer, and return with news.
“We will ride with them,” Anbjorn had said.
“Madness!” cried Olla. “If they are to stand hostage against treachery, do not let them leave!”
“Do you say,” asked Anbjorn, with a dangerous hush, “that we would turn against our own king?”
“I say,” said the old lord, “that you would be loyal to your earl.”
Anbjorn might then have struck him, respected elder or not, if Udr and Jorfyn’s skald hadn’t intervened.
Again, the arguments raged with much shouting, until the king decided one would go while the other stayed behind. It satisfied none, but mollified enough, and so the matter was settled. The king then had them draw lots. Udr was chosen to ride.
He rode with a handful of others selected by the earls and from the king’s own guard. They set out for Pedham, back-tracking the route Kjarstan should most likely have taken. On rare occasion they ran across spies or scouts from Gunnleif’s army, dispatching them with ruthless efficiency of sword and spear.
Now they had reached the high-hill river valley, and something was not at all right. A strange mood crept over them, a strange apprehension. Talk died away. Men tensed in their saddles and twitched alert at every bird-call or noise. More than one checked to see his blade rested loose in the scabbard, ready to be drawn.
Udr himself felt uncommonly jumpy; his sack tight, his skin crawling. Nothing he could see, hear, or smell gave any reason for such skittishness.
The valley ahead lay peaceful, dusted fine green from the new-growing grass. The river flowed smooth in its course, disturbed only by the silvery leap-flicker and splashing of fish rising to snap at skate-flies.
Still, his palms clutched, sweating at the reins as he guided his horse through the random scatter of stones. He found himself wishing the lots had drawn differently, with him the one to stay behind at the war-camp where it was safe.
Which was no sort of thought for a warrior… a wrong sort of thought in more ways than one… and he could not say why.
Further on, one of Jorfyn’s men gave a shout of discovery. When the others neared him, they saw he’d found a horse. Udr recognized it as one of the horses from Pedham, wandering saddled and bridled but riderless among tall grey standing stones, nosing at the tender green shoots to graze on the new grass.