The Whale Road - Robert Low

No one knew. Muttering curses under his breath, he led us up the steps, to where another guard stood at the hall door. Einar recited the same story, used Sten's name and suddenly, there was a flash of blinding light as the cloaks were peeled back. I almost lost a finger in their rush to get the swords out in that empty antechamber.

Einar held up one hand. 'Quiet, as you would tickle trout from a stream, or your woman's fancy. We grab the monk, give him a dunt—no more, mind—that will lay him out as dead, then put him in the corpse bed and trust the guards don't see, in the dark, that we are one more walking out than walking in.'

It was a good and daring plan, as everyone agreed afterwards. But, as Gunnar Raudi pointed out, plans are like summer snow on a dyke and rarely last more than a few minutes.

Which is what happened when we sneaked into the room where Einar, Illugi and I had dined. It seemed an age ago, but the dishes were still there.

And so were the soft-slippered servants, clearing them away.

`Fuck—'

It was all anyone had time to say. There were four of them, all O-mouthed and frozen. There were six of us and they were still scrabbling on the polished floor when our nailed boots scarred a way to them and steel flashed in their faces.

Three died in a welter of sprayed blood and muffled shrieks. The fourth found Skapti sitting on him, driving the air from his body, slamming his head casually and rhythmically into the floorboards. I hadn't even moved, found I had stopped breathing and started again with a savage, hoarse intake.

`The monk?' demanded Einar, leaning down to the dazed, battered thrall. His shaved head was bleeding, his eyes rolling. He had shat himself and Skapti, sniffing suspiciously, stopped sitting on him in a hurry, which had the added effect of allowing the man to breathe and talk.

`There . . .'

Gunnar Raudi and Ketil Crow sprang forward. Skapti whacked the flat of his sword on to the thrall's head, which slammed it back into the floorboards. Blood seeped from the thrall's ears, I noticed.

Skapti moved on and probably thought he had been merciful in only knocking the man unconscious. I reckoned, from the rasping breath and leaking blood, that the man would almost certainly die. Even if he didn't, he'd probably be witless, like old Oktar, who had been suspected of releasing the white bear at Bjornshafen.

The following summer he had been kicked in the head by a stallion and blood had come out of his ears.

He had survived, with a big dent and no mind enough to keep him from drooling, so Gudleif had had him sacrificed, in the old way, his blood sprinkled on the fields, as a mercy. Another wyrd death to lay at the den of that bear—and, of course, at the feet of my father.

A series of shouts and a scuffle snatched me from these thoughts. Ketil Crow arrived, more or less behind Martin the monk, who smiled smoothly at Einar—much to all our bewilderment. 'Excellent,' he declared. `How did you plan to get me out?'

`How do you know we planned to get you out and not just lay you out?' scowled Ketil Crow. Einar indicated the corpse bed Hring was dragging in and Martin's smile grew broader still.

`Clever,' he said, then, briskly: 'There is a woman next door. She will be the one for that bed, well covered. I will, if I may, borrow a cloak and helm—from Orm, who is my size '

`Wait, wait,' growled Einar, scrubbing his stubbled chin. 'What's all this? What woman?'

Martin was already pulling the cloak from my unyielding shoulders, trying to prise my leather helmet off.

I slapped his hands away.

`Lambisson does not esteem me. He will be back soon, having realised that the woman I had brought here is more valuable than anything else he seeks.'

`Valuable?' demanded Einar.

`She knows the way to a great treasure,' Martin responded, tugging, then rounded angrily on me. 'Let it go, you idiot boy.'

At which point, angered beyond anything I had experienced in my life, I swung my sword in a half-arc. It was wild—a bad swing entirely, as Skapti said later. It hit the monk high on the head, but with the flat, not the edge. He went down like a sacrificed horse, gone from a twisted-faced little weasel of a man to a heap of rags on the floor.

Einar bent, studied him for a moment, then stroked his beard again and nodded admiringly at me. 'Good stroke. Hring, bring the little rat round. Let's find this woman . . .'

We moved to the door, opened it as cautiously as possible and Ketil Crow moved in, followed by Gunnar Raudi, then me. Einar and Skapti stayed outside.

It was dark, lit only by a horn lantern, guttering low, and fetid, a strange, high smell which I came to recognise later as fear and shit in equal measure. Ketil Crow knew it well, for it put him into a half-crouch, blade held low in his left hand, hackles up. Behind, Gunnar Raudi moved to the left. Naively, I bumbled on, past Ketil and on to the middle of the room, to the only furniture in it: a low bed with a pile of rags.

It was only when the rags moved that I realised it was human . . . or had been once, at least. There was a droning sound, a long muttering, then a sobbing—such a sound as to crack your heart. I backed away, my own hackles up. Perhaps this was the fetch of a woman who had died . . .

Gunnar poked the rags with the blunt tip of his sword and they moved rapidly, scuttling like an animal, reached the end of a length of chain and stopped. A head came up, framed with tangled, greasy hair, face pale as the moon and with two wild, bright orbs staring back at us. The woman—if woman it was—gabbled something which sounded vaguely familiar. Ketil Crow advanced slowly and, from the door, Einar's impatient voice growled for us to get the bloody woman and be done with it.

Ìt's chained up,' Ketil Crow said.

Ìt stinks,' added Gunnar. 'And it's chained by the foot.'

`Then cut the flicking thing,' hissed Einar, Behind him came slapping sounds and a low moan as Martin was brought back to life.

`The foot?' I gasped, aghast at such an idea, but knowing either of them was capable of it. Gunnar shot me a scornful scowl.

`The chain, you horse's arse.' And he nodded to Ketil Crow to get on with it, but got only a scowl.

Ùse your own blade. I like the edge on mine.'

`By Loki's hairy arse!' roared Skapti, barrelling in and knocking everyone aside, the huge Shieldbreaker sword soaring up. The pile of rags that was a woman saw it, screamed once and flopped. The blade whirled down; the chain shattered at the point where it joined an iron fetter.

Skapti swung round, his eyes boar-like and red. Instinctively, Ketil Crow and Gunnar backed away.

`Now you pair of turds can carry her,' he growled. For a moment, Ketil Crow's eyes narrowed dangerously and I watched him, for I knew if he struck Skapti it would be from behind. No sane man would face an armed Skapti in a confined space.

Instead, he grinned like a wolf on a kill and moved to the woman. I followed Skapti outside, where Martin was sitting up and shaking his head, dripping from the contents of a ewer Hring had thrown on him.

Hring, smirking, was trying to force the pewter pot inside his tunic, flattening it into uselessness as he did so.

Einar hauled the monk up on to unsteady legs and clapped him playfully on the shoulder. 'Sore head, eh?

Now you be quiet and nice, or I will let the Bear Slayer loose on you again.'

Everyone chuckled—save me and Martin.

Ì will want to know more of this, monk,' Einar went on. 'But, for now, we will follow your plan. Orm, give him your cloak and helm, for I don't think Brondolf Lambisson will want him gone from here and may have left instructions to that effect. Lower the woman on to the corpse bed and cover her up. Then we can leave.'

They had completed their task, were hefting the bed and moving from the wreck of the room, when the door opened and Brondolf Lambisson strode in, holding a small chest close to his own.

There had been no warning for him. One minute he was coming into the neat, warm hov of his fortress, slippers on his feet, a nice warm hat on his head; the next he had stepped into a nightmare wreck of a room, reeking of shit and blood, littered with corpses and come face to face with the last six armed men in the world he wanted to meet.

He had time to give a strangled yelp and whirl back out of the door, though, hurling the chest straight at the nearest, which happened to be Skapti and Einar. It hit Skapti on the shoulder, smacked Einar on the forehead and dazed him. With a cry, Skapti dropped his end of the corpse bed, blocking the doorway.

Àh, Odin's bollocks . . .'

Einar was clutching his head, cursing so hard I made a sign against angering the very gods he maligned.

Blood stained his fingers when he removed them.

Skapti started to lumber after the fleeing Lambisson, but Einar grabbed him. 'No. Time to row hard for it,'

he said through pain-gritted teeth.

Hring picked up the chest and shook it. It rattled with coin and he beamed at Einar.

`You have a head for business right enough, Einar.'

The answer was a dangerous growl and a shake that sprayed everyone with warm droplets, like a dog climbing out of a stream.

Martin stumbled forward, my hand on the nape of his neck. He tried once to shake me off and I tightened my grip, at which he gave up struggling and trembled, part with anger, but mainly with fear.

`The chest,' he managed and Einar took it from Hring, opened it, shot a look full of questions at the monk.

Òn the thong . . .' muttered Martin. Einar started raking about in the chest.

`Time to go, Einar,' warned Skapti. 'Lambisson will raise the whole Borg in another blink.'

Einar fished out a leather loop, dangling from which was a heavy coin, punched with a hole to take the thong. It swung, gleaming in the flickering lights.

`The woman had it round her neck,' Martin said, thick-voiced with the pain in his head.

We all craned to see it, but it was just a medallion to me.

`See it,' Martin urged. 'On one side and the other . . .'

Einar turned it over and over in his fingers, while Skapti hovered by the door. 'Einar . . . in the name of Thor, move your arse.'

‘On one side, Sigurd . . .’ Martin wheezed.

And I saw it, as it turned and flashed. On one side, the head of Sigurd, slayer of Fafnir. On the other, the dragon head. `Volsung-minted; he went on. 'From the hoard Sigurd took. There is no other coin like it out in the world.'

Skapti slammed the doorpost with his forehead and roared his anxious frustration at us all.

Àll the others, its brothers and sisters,' Martin breathed, 'are buried with Attila the Hun.'

Then we were out into the little room, composing ourselves and stepping as quietly as we could, controlling our ragged breathing with effort, to face the guard on the steps.

`Wouldn't that weasel-faced little fuck help then?' asked the guard sympathetically. Beside me, I felt Martin stiffen and poked him meaningfully.

`No. We will do it with our own rites,' answered Einar and moved on, keeping his head turned as far from the man as possible, so the blood wouldn't show.

We were halfway down the stairs when Einar stopped. A red flower bloomed in the dark, beyond the Borg walls. Shouts followed it. Another flower bloomed. The guard above us peered disbelievingly.

`Fire . . . ?'

Èyvind,' said Einar bitterly, as if the very same was a curse. Which, of course, it turned out to be.

Just then, the fortress alarm bell clanged out. Lambisson. The guard on the steps whirled, confused.

Helpfully, I said, 'Must be a fire in the town. That will be bad in this gale.'

The guard nodded, now unsure of whether to rush to the gate and find out, or stick to his post. Instead he said, 'Get on now. Hurry.' Then he turned into the fortress.

`Move!' hissed Einar, but that was a whip we didn't need. We almost scampered across the main gate, where the guards were staring. Only two now—it seemed Sten had taken the others to help against the fire, which was luck, since he seemed to know my face.

The ones on the gate couldn't give a rat's arse whether we had found a monk or given our comrade suitable burial, being too busy craning to see what was happening.

They waved us through and we headed off along the walkway, moving towards the town wall. The reek of smoke, shouts, a whirl of sparks and flame showed that Eyvind's handiwork was excellent. I remembered the raven, the doomed voice of Eyvind saying: I was looking at the town and thinking how easily it would burn.

A group of men and women with buckets charged past us, pushing along the walkway. Shouts whirled away with the wind, but some were louder up ahead, where a fresh red flower bloomed.

`There he goes!'

Eyvind stumbled from the cover of darkness, vaulted a fence, fell on the walkway and got up again. He was wildeyed and seemed to be laughing. He saw us and sprinted. Behind him, a crowd of pursuers made ugly noises.

`Fuck his mother,' hissed Ketil Crow. `He'll have them all down on us . . .'

There was confusion. All the weapons were hidden with the woman on the corpse bed. Eyvind, half stumbling, laughing with relief, charged up the walkway to us, to safety and his oathsworn oarmates.

Einar stepped forward, whirled, wrenched my breeks to the knee and whipped out the hidden seax, all in one movement that left me frozen in place—which was just as well, since I felt the wind of that edge trail past my naked balls.

Eyvind was trying to speak, gasping for air. Einar stepped forward, for all the world as if to embrace him, and drove the seax up under the ribs and straight to the heart. Eyvind simply collapsed like a bag into Einar's arms and he promptly threw the luckless dead man back towards the pursuing crowd, sprawling him bloodily on the walkway.

He turned to me and said, 'Pull up your breeks, boy. This is no place or time to have a shit.'

Then he swiftly—piously—laid the bloody blade on the chest of the swathed figure on the corpse bed, switched a covering edge over it and signalled us to move on.

Some of the baying pack had seen what had happened, others further behind had not, saw only that their quarry was down and a boy was trying to take a shit in the walkway. There was laughter, confusion.

The crowd milled up to the dead Eyvind like some giant, slavering cat whose prey had suddenly dropped dead before it could be played with. They pawed it with kicks for a while, then started to string up the corpse as we passed.

The owner of the house they wanted to use was arguing furiously about having it hang from his eaves.

More sparks whirled on the wind from the last fire Eyvind had started. Not one of them queried how he had died or that we had done it with a weapon we shouldn't have had. It was, I noted numbly, pulling up my breeks, as if we were invisible.

We went through the town gate, out past the garrison, now stumbling into life in response to the clanging bells, the shouts, the fires.