The beast sounded. The shark snout turned about in search. Paddles and tail sent the gross form toward him. He thought fleetingly that had those been Inuit in the boats, they’d have known to sink many harpoons in the body, trailing bladders to hamper it. Well, at best the man-eater was slow and awkward. He could swim rings around it. To get close, however, was. . . something that must be done.
The maw flapped hollow about a skeleton that, yes, seemed to be coming apart here and there. But feet and tail still drove, jaws still clashed. Tauno got onto the back, where nothing could reach him. He clamped thighs tight, though barnacles chewed them. He drew a second blade, and worked.
He could not reach clear around that bulk. But when he let go, the tail threshed feebly, half severed. Dizziness passed in dark rags before his eyes. He must withdraw for a short rest.
Did a dim knowledge stir in the tupilak, or was it driven to fulfill the curse? It lumbered back to the boats.
If it sank those, whether or not it outlasted them, would Eyjan’s captors ever let her go? He heard the mass ram on strakes, and rose for a look through air.
The second skiff drifted awash, helpless till the four crewmen left could bailout the hull and retrieve their floating oars. The tupilak struck again and again on Haakon’s vessel, whose stem was broken and whose planks were being torn free of the ribs. Neck and head reached in after prey. Where was the sheriff? His son Jonas hewed bravely with an ax-likewise, beside him, Steinkil. As Tauno watched, Steinkil stumbled into the teeth. They shut. Blood geysered. He reeled back, clasping the wrist where his right hand had been.
Haakon stood forth. He must have been knocked out. Crimson smeared his own face and breast, the last bright hue under wolfgray heaven. Somehow he spied Tauno, yards away. “Do you want help, merman?” he shouted.
From under a thwart, he lifted the boat’s anchor, woodenshanked but with ring, stock, and flukes of iron from former days, made fast by a leather cable to what remained of the stempost. Jonas had drawn back when Steinkil was crippled. The other two. cowered behind him. Haakon staggered aft. The jagged mouth yawned ready. He brought the anchor on high, crashed it down. A fluke put out the right eye and caught in the socket.
The jaws had him. Riven, he pul\ed free. “Men, swim!” he cried. “Tauno, take the beast—” He crumpled.
The halfling had strength back, and arrowed forward. Reckless of claws, he ripped. On the edge of sight, he saw Haakon’s crew go into the bay. The tupilak did not give chase. Tauno was harming it too much.
It plunged when he did, seeking to seize him. But a Greenland skiff dragged behind. Hardly more could it move than if the sea had frozen around it.
Tauno’s knives bit. Each piece that he cut away returned to the death whence the angakok had raised it.
Finally an empty hide floated and a shark’s head sank down into darkness. The waves cleansed themselves. When Tauno, airbreathing, reached the second boat, he felt the wind on his brow like an austere benediction.
Though now made useable again, the craft was not for him to board safely. Nine men were already an overload in a hull so splintered and sprung-nine, for by use of flotsam, both Haakon and Steinkil had been brought across. Tauno hung on the rail. The hale looked dazedly at him, drained of everything save awe. Steinkil’s bandaged stump looked as though he would live. Haakon would not. From breastbone to manhood, he was flayed open. His long frame sprawled in blood and entrails between two thwarts.
Yet he clung to wakefulness. His eyes and Tauno’s met, dimming blue on hot amber. The Liri prince could just catch a harsh whisper: “Merman, I thank you... Honor my oath, Jonas. . . . Merman, forgive me my lie about your people.”
“You had yours to think of,” Tauno said gently.
“And my daughter. . . . She’ll speak to you. . . . I’ve no right to beg. . . but will you find her and—” Haakon strove for breath. “Beseech her—but if she won’t, tell her I. . . I never disowned my Bengta. . . and in Purgatory I’ll pray for her—”
“Yes,” Tauno said, “Eyjan and I will do that.”
Haakon smiled. “Maybe you do have souls, you merfolk.”
Soon afterward he died.
X
Faerie senses found spoor that mortals could never. Tauno and Eyjan cast about for a mere brace of days—though they did travel too through most of the enormous late-autumn nights-before they discovered the Inuit’s new camp.
That was in a valley, small and snug above a high-walled bight. From the meadow a trail wound down toward the glimpsed gleam of water. A fresh spring bubbled out of turf gone sere but still soft underfoot. Dwarf birch and willow stood scattered, clinging to a last few yellow leaves. Elsewhere reared mountains, grayblue where snow did not lie. Through an eastward cleft flashed a mysterious green off the inland ice. A haloed westering sun slanted rays through air brilliant, breathless, and boreal.
Dogs bayed when the two big figures in fishskin tunics strode nigh, then caught the scent and quieted; they did not cringe like white men’s hounds. Hunters came out bearing harpoons, knives, or bows; they did not bluster. Women stayed at their tasks, bidding children stay close by; they did not voice fear or hatred.
Everybody seemed to be at home, enjoying the spoils of a chase that had gone well. Over fire, meat of both seal and bear made savory smoke. More was hung on poles for safety; the larger hides were being scraped clean; women had begun chewing on the smaller to supple them. While stone huts were there against winter, as yet families used their conical tents. Passing by one of these, the newcomers saw a half-completed piece of work, a carving in ivory of a musk ox. It was exquisite.
They raised palms and called, “Peace! Remember us from the umiak. We are your friends.”
Weapons sank or fell to earth. Bengta’s man took the word: “We could not see you well. The sun dazzled us. Somebody is ashamed.” She herself hastened forth to meet the siblings. “You won’t betray us to the Norse, will you?” she pleaded in that tongue.
“No, Tauno said. “We do bear a t;nessage from them.”
“And hard news for you, dear,” Eyjan added. She caught both Bengta’s hands. “Your father is dead. The tupilak got him as he and Tauno fought it. But he is avenged, the monster is slain, and before he went, he blessed you.”
“O-o-oh—” The girl stood moveless for a space. Her breath fogged the crackling cold, till it lost itself in a sky the color of her eyes. Smoke had dulled her hair, which she wore now in a knot, Inuit fashion. But she stood straight and healthy, in furs a queen might covet. “Oh, Father, I never dreamed—” She wept. Eyjan hugged and comforted her.
Minik had followed the talk. Clumsily, he patted her shoulder. “Excuse her,” he said in his own speech. “She is . . . not as well versed in right ways. . . as one hopes she will become in due course. Kuyapikasit, my first wife, will make food and roll out bedding for you.” He smiled, shy through sorrow on her behalf.
Panigpak the angakok came likewise from the ring of staring folk. Trouble touched his worn features. “Somebody thinks he heard something about a tupilak,” he forced out. However Tauno loomed above him, his gaze and his stance were steady.
“You heard aright,” the halfling replied. He and Eyjan had worked out beforehand what to say in the Inuit. Thus he told of the battle in swift strokes of speech.
The people buzzed their horror. Panigpak was worst hit. “I am a fool,” he groaned. “I brought that danger on you, who never harmed us.”
“Who could have foreseen?” Tauno consoled. “And, hark, there is more.
“When we returned, Jonas Haakonsson sent his carls to summon the men of the Vestri Bygd to a Thing, a meeting where decisions are made. My sister-he listened to her, and spoke as she counseled him. The rest listened to me. We frightened them, you understand, although they did suppose we had been sent for their rescue by the Great Nature.” That was as close as Inuit could come to “God.”