Ivarr and Knótr helped Thóllakr – at least he had the sense not to whimper – follow the holy man back to the village by the sacred tower, or whatever it was.
In broken Tongue, the villager said: ‘We feast. Now. You join?’
They would need to keep watchful and go easy on the mead or ale, but eating well would be a good thing after the voyage.
‘We will feast with you,’ said Bjartr Red-Tooth.
And so they did.
When he had eaten enough of the local fowl, and drunk a horn of watery mead, Fenrisulfr clapped several of his men on the shoulder, then went outside. In the wake of the storm, the night smelled fresh beneath a white full moon, strong enough to cast shadows.
He felt good, and knew there was a small task left undone: telling Thóllakr what an idiot he was. Fenrisulfr grinned, since the young warrior’s clumsiness seemed to have done no harm; but he would use harsh words nonetheless.
Someone was throwing up in the stinking middens. On the way back, he would check that it was not one of his own band, whom he expected to maintain discipline. The locals seemed cowed, but there was always an element of doubt in an unknown country, the possibility of allies secretly summoned and moving through the night – it was bright enough to travel by – for a dawn attack.
Possible, not likely.
And then he heard it.
Dah, dah-dum, dah-dah-dah-dum, dah-dah.
The nine-note sequence was faint, not as if the darkness were distant, but as if it had grown weak. And what of that? A weakened enemy was easier to kill, that was all.
It’s been fifteen years.
So it was possible the tainted spirit belonged to someone other than Stígr; but as the berserkergangr roiled within Fenrisulfr, begging to take over, he knew it did not matter: whoever this was, they were going to die.
He hefted his twin war-axes, lately his weapons of choice – he wore his sword as status symbol and back-up weapon, along with a dagger, while the crystal-tipped spear remained at the longboat, guarded – and set off at a jog, following a flattened path through moonlit silver grass, towards a large roundhouse inside which an orange fire burned. If his quarry was warm and relaxed, so much the better, for cold wind and chaos would enter along with him, the hell-wolf, and destruction would follow.
Ready.
His foot smashed the door in, and he was inside.
Stígr!
The one-eyed man was there, mouth opening—
NOW!
—as twin axe-blades cut down through his collar bones and into his chest, cutting his heart so that unconsciousness came instantly, but that was not enough because the spirit might yet feel agony before it left the body, and this one deserved to suffer, so in his berserkr rage Fenrisulfr continued to cut and smash, to kick and hew, smashing the dead thing into butchered parts, over and over—
Done.
—and then it clicked off, the berserkergangr, as only he could manage, and Fenrisulfr was a man once more, only a man.
The inside of the roundhouse was wet, all dripping red, painted by Stígr’s blood. A warrior knew, as a non-warrior could not, just how much blood might spray and gush from a human body; but even so, it was spectacular, the scarlet decoration of the interior: ceiling, curved walls, the table and cots, and the spattered clothing and faces of the people staring at him, shocked.
Thóllakr, his wound bandaged and wrapped with a poultice, was the first to speak.
‘Chief? Why, uh . . .?’
Fenrisulfr answered: ‘He was possessed of the darkness.’
A holy man was there, not their chief but a relative youth, along with a young woman who looked to have been holding Thóllakr’s hand: under other circumstances, Fenrisulfr would have thought Good for you. But there was the aftermath of destroying his enemy to deal with.
‘He prayed,’ said the young holy man in passable Tongue. ‘For many years, he prayed to weaken the demons that tortured his spirit. And the darkness is weak, he said. It can only touch men’s spirits, and that barely, and makes do with that because it cannot move worldly objects directly, so it really is not mighty but very, very weak . . .’
He seemed to realise he was babbling, but could not help spilling more words: ‘Stígr said the dark powers needed a bridge that was not Bifröst. That everyone forgets Múspellheim in their schemes. And he said only you would understand that.’
‘You’ve never seen me before.’ Fenrisulfr shrugged, spilling blood from his axe-heads. ‘You cannot know me.’
The holy man wiped his face, then looked startled at the sight of his hand, as if he had thought he was wiping off sweat instead of dead man’s blood.
‘Stígr said a wolf from hell would come for him.’
There was more the young holy man wanted to say, but though his mouth worked, his throat seized up; and then he turned away, making a mystic gesture – hand to forehead, stomach, then either side of his chest. Fenrisulfr had seen it before, as far east as Byzantium, and now here in the west.
The scrape of blades withdrawing from scabbards came from outside.
Fenrisulfr crouched and growled, ready to strike. Then he heard: ‘Chief? Fenrisulfr?’
‘Come inside, good Brökkr.’
Behind Brökkr came Egil Blood-Sword, then his warrior Davith, and Ári from Fenrisulfr’s band, along with the chief holy man, whose face was pale.
‘Y-you killed Stígr. He was under our protection.’
Fenrisulfr felt himself tremble.
‘Don’t think much of your protection,’ said Davith, while Egil frowned.
‘This was a creature of darkness,’ said Fenrisulfr. ‘A seithr adept. An abomination, holy man, that you sheltered.’
‘You had no—’
But the holy man reached out to grab Fenrisulfr, and that was a mistake.
‘Agh!’
Blood gushed again as Fenrisulfr’s axe severed the arm.
‘Shit,’ said Egil.
He punched the howling holy man in the back of the neck, and the holy man dropped face-first and silent, blood spurting from the glistening stump.
Then Egil looked at Fenrisulfr and grinned.
‘Guess we just changed our plans.’
Behind Fenrisulfr, Thóllakr groaned as he swung himself up from the cot, and put one arm around the young woman, who had not spoken and who looked in shock. It was a wordless claim of ownership or at least protection, which his fellow warriors would not break. The remaining young holy man shrank back, as if hoping no one would notice him.
‘Blood and death,’ said Fenrisulfr quietly.
‘Blood and death,’ agreed Egil Blood-Sword.
And Brökkr laughed.
‘The Hell-Wolf is with us again.’
Fenrisulfr growled once more as berserkergangr came upon him. Egil dropped to one side and Brökkr to the other, understanding the danger, and allowed Fenrisulfr to rush outside first, before following with weapons ready. Fenrisulfr, sprinting hard, gave vent to his wolf-warrior’s roar, and everywhere the raiders responded, heartbeat-fast, drawing and swinging weapons, instantly transformed in a way soft villagers and holy men could never understand or cope with.
And the slaughter began, as the Middle World reduced to two things only, for in warrior rage it is hard to hear the screaming.
Blood and death were all.
TWENTY-NINE
VIJAYA & METRONOME STATION, 2606 AD
Every war needs a name, though its survivors normally term it just that: The War. In human history there had never been a war across the stars, never mind spanning continua; but as the hunt for revenge against the Zajinets intensified, the massively non-linear dynamics of mu-space engagements, not to mention the indecipherable thought processes of the enemy, meant that for Pilots, only one name sufficed for the struggle thrust upon them.