When she had gone from its mind, it crouched, its small pale eyes gazing deep into the trees, breathing the wet, earthy scents of the forest, the far-off taint of blood and men and horses. Weariness surged in its brain, a dark unthinking pain that masked even the hunger.
The rune thing stumbled far down into the forest, over roots and rocks, fumbling through the tangle of branches; down black aisles of stark trees to the fresh mound of turned earth. Trampling over that, it climbed into a deep split between two rocks and curled there, heaving its huge bulk around in search of comfort. It was growing daily; its body would hardly fit here now; its skin was scratched and smeared and sodden with the forest’s damp. Deep among mosses and lichen and unfurling bracken, eyes closed, it waited for sleep.
When a small bird landed on a stone and picked at its fur, the creature did not move. Deep in dreams, the voice whispered to it all the long afternoon.
Sixteen
Fatal bonds were fettered for him.
“I’ve called you here to discuss what to do,” Wulfgar said.
They sat in his room, Jessa and Kari by the fire, Brochael on the bench, Skapti and Vidar opposite. Wulfgar turned from the window and leaned his back against it.
“Then come and sit down,” Skapti muttered. “We can’t talk with you prowling.”
Wulfgar came over, but without his usual amusement. He sat on a chair and leaned back grimly.
“First, what do we know about it? Gudrun sent it.” He glanced at Kari. “That’s certain.”
The boy nodded.
“Second. It kills. Apparently to eat.” For a moment he was silent as they all thought of Halldor; then he pulled his thoughts back and snapped, “It’s big, has no weapons but its hands, may or may not be intelligent. And it’s coming here. Why?”
Some eyes and most thoughts slid to Kari.
“Because there is something here that draws it,” he said simply. “I don’t know yet what it is.”
“A person?” Vidar asked smoothly.
“Maybe.”
“And what will it do when it comes back to the hold? Perhaps tonight? Or tomorrow?”
They were silent. Flames crackled in the room; someone yelled at a dog outside.
Kari said, “Didn’t Freyr tell you?” He looked strangely at the priest through his silver fringe of hair, and Vidar shrugged uneasily.
“The god spoke of death.”
“Whose?”
Vidar glanced at Wulfgar and didn’t answer.
“Mine,” the Jarl said softly.
Brochael swore softly under his breath, and Skapti drew himself up sharply. “You? It’s come for you?”
Wulfgar shrugged.
“Then you can’t risk yourself hunting it!”
Angrily the Jarl stood up. “It’s killed one of my men. I have a responsibility to his family and to the rest of them. I have no choice but to hunt it. Tomorrow. This afternoon I’ll send messengers to all the holdings. We need every man they can spare.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue with me, Skapti! I have to go. You know that.”
They all knew it.
Into the silence Vidar said, “I agree. It kills like a beast—we must hunt it like one. Despite the danger.” He glanced at Wulfgar then; a dark flicker of a look that made Jessa uneasy.
Kari stirred beside her. “I don’t think hunting it is the answer.”
Wulfgar glared at him. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not a thing of flesh and blood.”
“Then what? Fight sorcery with sorcery?”
Slowly Kari nodded. “Perhaps. If I knew what it searches for. But there’s one thing about it that I do know, that I can feel right now. It’s hungry.”
Wrathfully Wulfgar sat down. “Do you expect me to feel sorry for it? Do you?”
Kari shook his head. His eyes were bright and sharp. “Not just hunger. I mean this.”
And for one piercing second he made them all empty, without heart or thoughts or memories, so that inside each of them was a black, raging nothing that swelled out and engulfed them, and they had no names anymore, no friends, nothing but a searing hunger that tormented like flame.
And then it was gone.
White-faced, Jessa let her fingers slowly stop trembling. She glanced at the others’ shocked faces.
“I’m sorry,” Kari said quietly. “But I wanted you to know. That’s what you will be hunting. And whatever it hungers for is here.”
Wulfgar stirred, brushing hair from his forehead. He looked sick and shaken but his voice was steady. “Then destroying it would almost be a mercy. I won’t change my mind, Kari. Tomorrow, early, we leave.”
He stood up, and everyone else did the same. “Stay here, Vidar,” the Jarl said, “I want to talk to you. Skapti, ask the thrall Hakon to come up, will you?”
Hakon ate the bread slowly. It was the best and softest he had ever tasted, but he didn’t want anyone to see that. And the Jarlshall was so huge, all built of stone like the halls of Asgard, the meat spitted and crackling over its fires. And the tapestries! His eyes followed them as they gusted and stirred; great dusty faded hunts, the intricately sewn adventures of the gods, Odin with both his ravens, Hammer-Thor, Loki, Freyr. There was nothing like this at Skulisstead—a dark, greasy house, full of cooking smells and fleas and drying fleeces. This was how lords lived.
Skuli was drinking at the nearest fire. Drinking too much. He’d be here for the afternoon at least, downing the Jarl’s hospitality, and then, Hakon thought with a brief smile, he’d probably sleep it off. For him it was a day free of work, and that was so strange he hardly knew what to do with it.
Then the tall man, the poet, came over and beckoned him with a long finger. “Come with me, Odin-favored. The Jarl wants you.”
Following him, Hakon muttered, “Don’t mock me, master.”
Skapti grinned. “They say Odin isn’t to be trusted. Those birds that saved you belonged to Kari Ragnarsson.”
“The Snow-walker?”
“The same. So you owe him for your rescue.”
Hakon set his mouth in a tight line and said nothing.
Jarl Wulfgar was waiting for him in a small room with a fire. He waved Skapti away and told Hakon to sit down. The skald went out and closed the door reluctantly.
“Now, I want to hear it again. What you saw.”
Hakon nodded. He already liked this dark, lazy, almost dangerous man. After he’d finished, Wulfgar asked a few sharp, relentless questions. Then he sat still.
There was one other listener there—the one they called the priest of Freyr, with the pale coat and the scar down his face. Hakon hadn’t noticed him at first; now he saw how the man held that cheek away, in shadow, and he understood that. His own useless hand lay on his knee; he had learned how to make it look normal. Until he tried to pick anything up.
The man listened and said nothing until the Jarl turned to him. “Well?”
“I don’t know. Freyr spoke obliquely, as the gods do.”
“But if you don’t think it was this creature he was warning me against, then what, Vidar? And even if it threatens my death, I can’t let it win.”
“Jarl.” The priest came forward. “You know what I think. May I speak again, of things you won’t like?”
Almost angrily, Wulfgar glared at him. “I’m not Gudrun. You can say what you want.”
Vidar nodded and sat down. “Then let me say this. I don’t think Freyr meant this creature at all. Perhaps it is just an ice bear, driven south by hunger. I think Freyr was warning us of a nearer danger, an evil, sorcerous threat.”
The Jarl turned his head quickly. “You mean Kari.”
“Yes.”
Wulfgar clenched a fist but Vidar said, “Listen, Wulfgar, hear me out. I know you trust Kari. But you’re the Jarl, and my friend, and I can’t let any harm come to you. I have to say this.”
Hakon sat silent. They both seemed to have forgotten he was even there. He was just a thrall, after all.
Wulfgar gazed into the fire bitterly. “Kari’s my friend, too.”