Snow-Walker (21 page)

Odin, he thought, if you love me, do something.

The branches moved. It was coming; snow blurred it but it was coming out, toward him. And at that instant the moon leaked from its cloud and lit the wood with sudden bars of silver.

Breathless, Hakon pressed himself back. He saw a gray pelt, a thick, heavy body, eyes lit with savage hunger. His sword glimmered like frost; the air before him was a whirlwind of white, dissolving flakes.

The creature made a sound, wordless, tense.

Sweat running, Hakon raised his sword.

And then, from above, came a screech that made him jerk his glance up; the night fell on him in two black pieces, flapping and screaming. As he ducked, they stabbed at the rune beast's face, scratching, fluttering, and it clawed them off, roaring, swinging away.

In an instant Hakon was scrambling up the tree, hauling himself up clumsily, dragged by small invisible fingers, torn, scratched, shaking all over with unstoppable fear. “All right!” he whispered. “It's all right!”

Below they heard the roars of furious anger. In a whirlwind of shadows the thing crashed back into the under-growth, slashing and splintering. They heard it howl and stagger through the wood, farther and farther off into the rising gale.

His arm around Inga, Hakon tried to stop shaking. He stared into the dark, listening, intent for the distant sounds. Soon only wind shook the wood. Snow gusted about them.

After a long time the little boy whispered in his ear, “What was it? What scared it away?”

For a moment Hakon could not speak. Then he managed a word.

“Birds.”

“Birds?”

“Ravens. Two great ravens.”

“Where did they come from?”

Dazed, Hakon watched the moonlight glitter on his rusty, useless blade. Then he said, “Odin sent them.”

Jessa shuffled her feet. It was cold, standing out here in the growing dusk. Far off to the west the sky was a deep velvet blue, slowly being marred by a great pile of purple swelling cloud. The first stars glimmered, almost too faint to see unless she stared hard at them.

Out there on the hill above the fjord the beacon was burning, blazing over the black water, its reflection rippling like a dragon's tongue, the explosions of wood at its heart loud even from here. Miles away another fire burned, a mere point in the sky.

The fires burned for the god's journey. The image of Freyr, keeper of the harvest, lord of boars and horses, was coming to the Jarlshold last of all, as he did every year, on his gilded wagon. All through the last of the winter, the god had traveled, bringing spring with him, dragged from hold to hold, village to village, over the snowdrifts and through the dense forests, rowed on boats to the ends of the narrowest fjords. Every year Freyr visited his farmers and brought them luck, and heart—the promise of plenty. And last of all he came to Wulfgar's hall.

She scuffed her feet impatiently against a tussock of grass. Around her the crowd waited—women and thralls, bondsmen, freemen, children, warriors, some laughing and talking, some silent. Skapti came pushing through them.

“Well?” she said at once.

“Nothing. The patrols went a day's journey to the north and east—the last came back a few minutes ago. Nothing. Though they said the woods were strangely silent.” He scratched his ear with a long hand.

“Do you believe it?” Jessa asked.

“They believed it, didn't they? Those men were terrified. As for trolls and mere dwellers, who knows? Something killed the stock, that's sure.”

“And the man.”

He pulled a face. “Wulfgar will have that looked into. Men are mostly killed by other men.”

She stared at him. “You think that?”

“I'm a hardheaded poet, little valkyrie, and I think appalling things. But don't worry, Wulfgar believes in this creature. A bear, he thinks, a big one, driven south by hunger. He's put men on all the approaches. And he says he'll ask the god about it.”

Uneasy, she turned away. But those men had been gripped by terror. And there was still that little rat-thief somewhere about. She clenched her gloves into fists. She couldn't let that rest. Vidar would have to be followed again, and more closely.

She could see him now, waiting down there on the shore, a dim figure on the beach. And as the crowd around her murmured and pointed, she saw the boat.

A longship, blazing with torches. It slid out of the dark mist without a ripple, and shadows moved on its deck among the flare light, as if it truly came from a realm beyond the world—Asgard or Niflheim—a ship of spirits. As it ground into the shingle, the figures on deck and beach became a mass of black and scarlet, confused flickers, lifting something among the smoke and flame crackle. Then in the growing dark they moved up the hill toward her and the muddle became a long line of torchbearers, escorting the wagon of Freyr to the Jarl's welcome.

Six men pulled it; as they drew near she saw their masks: boar, horse, the black holes of their eyes. These were men who had given a year to Freyr's service, to guard his image. When their time was up, others would take their place; there were always eager men. Farmers would send their sons—it would bring them a good harvest.

And hauled behind them, dragged with thick ropes that had frayed and worn against the wood, came the great gilded wagon, swaying and rattling, with the crowd pushing it and holding children up to touch it and laughing.

In it sat the god himself. The image was unknowably ancient, centuries old; a crude, wooden shape, seamed and split with time and the rain.

A young head, its eyes narrow slits roughly hewn and a massive collar of gold around its neck, it rattled past her, and she turned to follow the crowd jostling into the Jarlshall, coughing in the streaming smoke from the pits where the feast meats baked.

The hall too was smoky with torches, the windows shuttered. The image was dragged between the filthy, billowing tapestries, over the flagstones, right up to the hearth where Wulfgar waited, alone in his carven chair, his picked men ranged behind him.

Slowly he stood up.

Still swaying in its gilded seat, the eyes of Freyr stared into the darkness of the hall.

Wulfgar put his hand out; a woman put a horn into it, a heavy ox horn banded with amber and gold. He lifted it and looked up at the towering head.

“I greet your image, Freyr. Bring plenty on the hold.” And he drank a little and gave the horn to Vidar. Slowly it was passed from hand to hand, mouth to mouth, everyone sipping at the rich red wine, even the smallest children. Jessa let its bitterness slide over her tongue, heat her throat. Then she pushed to the front and found a bench by the wall and sat there, leaning back in the shadows.

Vidar Freyrspriest stood by himself now. He wore a light coat threaded with amulets of boars, open at the neck. From a small bowl held by a thrall he took the last pieces of toadstool and swallowed them, his hand shaking. Already he looked strange, his face pale and sweating, his eyes unfocused, the pupils swollen and dark.

The thrall took his arm and led him to the image, and he stood before it, head bowed.

Talk died away. All the torches were put out. The hall was black, one pale circle of sky high in its east wall. Only the fires burned, and in their leaping light the god seemed to take life; shadows blurred on his face, the dark gashes of his eyes flickered and moved.

“Sit down,” Wulfgar muttered.

There was a rustle in the straw. Outside, a dog yelped.

“Freyr has come,” Wulfgar's voice said simply, “and we have questions to ask him. Most of you will have heard the rumor the men of Harvenir brought here yesterday. We need to know about this. Vidar Freyrspriest is ready. Freyr will speak through him. He may be able to tell us what this thing that prowls is.”

There was a hush in the hall. Jessa looked for Skapti and couldn't see him. It was too dark. Only the nearest faces were lit by the sharp, uneasy red light.

Wulfgar sat on his chair, leaning forward. He said softly, “Does Freyr hear me?”

Vidar stepped from the fire. His face was a mask of shadows. He lifted his head, staring blindly into the dark.

“I hear you.”

Jessa went cold. His voice was hoarse, a rasp, totally transformed. It was slurred as though he had forgotten the use of words. Not Vidar's voice.

No one moved. Wulfgar said, “We welcome you, Freyr. We ask your advice.”

There was silence. Then words came, breathed harshly, with difficulty.

“I give no freedom from danger.” The figure by the fire barely stirred. “The gods are bound by weird as you are. By the fate of Asgard.”

Wulfgar nodded. “We know this. But you have knowledge. There is something prowling in my land. Something out there in the darkness. It kills men and beasts, brings terror and shadows of fear. Do you know of it?”

The figure that was Vidar, and yet not Vidar, stood below the wagon. Firelight danced on him, black and red, and on the great image above him, and both their eyes were dark gashes; they were fragments of faces, masked with smoke.

The voice came suddenly, abruptly.

“Sorcery moves here. It approaches slowly, through the forests, over the snow-bound ridges and the passes. It is a terrible, driven hunger.”

“Hunger for what?” Wulfgar whispered.

“For something here. Something left here. Something that is death.”

And the figure shuddered and fell on his knees, gripped with sudden convulsions. Wulfgar leaped up and ran to him, propping him up, and as she came close behind, Jessa heard him mutter, “Whose death, Freyr? Whose?”

Face gray, eyes set, Vidar opened his mouth, struggled for breath. “Yours,” he hissed.

No one else could have heard. Wulfgar flashed a look at Jessa, but before he could speak, the priest's back arched in a spasm of pain; he lifted his head and cried out, “Listen! It comes from the north—a pale thing, evil, a creature of runes! Beware of it!”

Wulfgar shook him. “Vidar!”

But the priest crumpled and was silent.

After a shocked moment the Jarl nodded. “I hear your warning, Freyr,” he murmured, “and I thank you for it, believe me.” Raising his voice, he said, “Light the torches. Mord, help me with him. The trance is over.”

But before anyone could move, the door at the back of the hall slammed open. Every head turned.

In the dim starlight two figures stood. For a moment they waited there, then pushed forward, the crowd moving apart for them silently, as if in fear.

One was a big man; his hair and beard were russet. A great bearskin coat hung to his knee, an ax glinting at his side. But it was his companion that everyone stared at, as he dragged off his hood and gazed around at the throng of faces.

A thin, pale boy, his hair silver-white, his eyes colorless as frost.

Jessa stared at him in amazement.

“Kari?” she breathed.

He was taller, she thought, as they sat in the cleared hall with the torches being lit around them. But still as frail-looking, as brittle as ice.

Brochael, the big tawny man, was talking and eating at once, Skapti pouring him wine that he gulped down almost without noticing. “So it was a bad time to arrive then? I wondered what you were all doing there in the dark!” He grinned at Jessa, flung an arm around her, and squashed her against him till she punched him. “It's good to see you again, little lass. Not so little now either. Married yet?”

“Idiot!”

Letting her go, he drank again.

Skapti glanced at Kari. “And you, runemaster. How are you?”

“Oh, well enough.” But Kari was watching the thralls who tended the fire, their terrified sidelong glances.

“You can go,” Jessa said to them sharply. They hurried out.

“Don't mind them,” she said. “They're new here. Wulfgar's own men. Most of the people here won't have seen you before. They're bound to stare.”

“I know.” He gave her a quiet smile. She saw again that stunned silence in the mead hall, the crowd staring at Gudrun's son, her image, the other Snow-walker, the sorcerer from the world's end. For years only rumors about him had spread from hold to hold, about a creature kept prisoner in the uttermost north, and even when he'd come here before with herself and Wulfgar and Skapti, hardly anyone had seen him. Sitting here now, Jessa remembered his struggle with the witch that only she had watched, in this very hall—the blazing flames, the rune snow, the exhausting matching of two powers. And after it Gudrun had gone, walking into the night, leaving Kari her curse, and scars on all their hearts.

“They will never love you,” she said, “never trust you. Power like ours is a terror to them.”

Looking at him now, Jessa knew he was remembering that too.

Just then Wulfgar came back, and Vidar with him, walking with exaggerated care. The priest still looked pale, but his eyes were focused. He too stared at Kari.

“Vidar,” Wulfgar said coolly, “these are two of my greatest friends. This is Brochael Gunnarsson, and Kari Ragnarsson.”

Vidar's eyes flickered briefly to Brochael. He nodded. “I'm honored. I've heard much about you … both.”

The big man slapped him amiably on the arm. “Feeling better?”

“A little.” Vidar moved away stiffly. “The aftereffects of the trance echo in my mind for a time.”

“I'm sure they do.” Brochael leaned back and stretched his legs out to the fire. “One soul is enough for any man, without inviting the gods in.”

Everyone hid smiles, except Vidar, who stared at Brochael coldly.

“Have you eaten everything, Brochael?” Jessa asked him. “Because it's about time you told us why you're here. Not just to see me, I suppose?”

He laughed gruffly, but she saw him look quickly at Kari. “You tell them.”