The Wild Hunt, page 12
‘And not a sign –’ she began.
But her words were drowned in a furious chorus of howling from the forest. Turning, aghast, they saw at first a charcoal smudge: the shadowy mass of trees, too many and too close together to be more than a single blackness.
And then they saw movement, and pinpricks of yellow, as first one, then six wolves burst forth. And behind them, the two red, burning eyes of Grimnir’s horse. There was yet one more. The baleful, unblinking dot of Grimnir’s lone left eye. Each felt it bore into them. And even from that distance, it felt cold. Hard. And utterly free from pity.
‘Ride! Ride for your lives!’ Jaska managed, distraught and appalled in her moment of triumph. Still, they had a lead, slim as it was. And no wolf could outrun a horse, if that horse was at full strength.
‘Leif,’ said Astrid, her mind working to the same rhythm, ‘can you give us anything? The horses, I mean?’
Leif blinked.
‘Wave-lords of the land-sea!
Leaping, surging coursers!
Best your ocean brothers
By running the stronger!’
Where the words came from, he’d no idea – something about the breakers on waves being ‘white horses’, something in the tirelessness of the sea – but they had an immediate effect. He tightened his grip as the horses streaked forward with renewed vigour, and the pack fell behind.
‘I’ve got more!’ he said, and spoke again, throwing the lines over his shoulder as if they were stones. The bone-dry heath behind them burst at once into a wall of flame, scorching their backs.
‘That should hold them!’ cried Jaska, but once again, she had spoken too soon. One by one, the wolves leapt high, each clearing the fire. And before her scarce-believing gaze, Grimnir himself crashed his black charger right through the flickering red, and the tongues of flame shrank back from his horse and died to nothing. The Hunt came on.
‘Not far to the mounds now,’ Astrid panted. They had covered more than half the distance in a staggeringly short time, but madder still, the Hunt was gaining on them, spurred into a fury by Leif’s attempts at resistance; the fury of a god not used to being answered back.
‘We need more time, or they’ll catch us at the very door,’ said Jaska. Risking another glance back, she could see Grimnir half rising from his saddle, flexing his spear-arm – the arm that had slain Issar. Not close enough to chance a throw. But not far off either.
‘Never fear. Just get us to the mounds first,’ Leif called back to her. He felt it now, felt what it was that had lent the strength to his words. The power of Uppsala, the prayers and sacrifices of a kingdom, of the centuries, seeping out and into his poems. Everything was heightened in this place. It set his flesh shivering with potential. He was ready to try anything.
Anything, as long as he could focus on the task in hand, and not look back at the grim grey hunter. But despite himself he glanced over his shoulder and saw that high dead face, ever closer.
He saw something else too. The Hunt had come to ground. No longer were they ripping through the sky, riding the air – wolf paws were slapping the dry, blasted heath, gouging earth with their claws, the red-eyed horse’s hoofs tearing up the grass.
Of course – they were out of the forest. This wasn’t Odin’s domain, not this near the temple. He didn’t reign here. It must make them weaker, even as he, Leif, drew strength from the age-old power of Uppsala. The thought gave him hope.
And then he saw a third thing. The Hunt was almost at their heels, and two wolves broke ahead, putting on a spurt, leaping at Hestur. They were worrying at his flanks, screwing themselves clear of his kicking hind legs, dragging him down. Astrid was twisted round in the saddle, hacking at one with her sword, but the angle was impossible.
Leif let out a cry – some unknown couplet, the words flung from his mouth, forgotten on the instant – and the heath split beneath the wolves, a deep chasm opening. One fell instantly from sight, lost to the depths of the earth, a howl of terror left hanging in the cold night air. The other had checked, gathering for a second spring, and found its forepaws scrabbling at the abyss. With a desperate effort it flexed, coiled, wrenched its way back to safety – and Hestur kicked clear, scratched and scared, pelting after the others. The rest of the oncoming Hunt knocked the back-pedalling wolf aside, clearing the gap in a single bound, and it closed up again behind them. But it had gained them some distance. And now Grimnir had only five wolves in his pack.
Enormous black shapes were rearing up on either side, swallowing the sky, and Leif’s heart lodged halfway up his throat before he realised that they were speeding between the burial mounds. On the other side was Uppsala. But the Hunt was too close. Could he dredge up one last effort?
And he felt it hit him, the ages of Uppsala, the richness and the sorrow of all that had gone before, all that was and would be – all that had been, and might be again. And he thought of his enemy, Odin, and how long ago he and his brothers had made the world from the butchered body of the first god, Ymir. Ymir’s remains were all around them. And the world, Leif thought, was many things. But most of all, it was old.
He tugged hard on the reins, leant back, and the bit dug into his horse’s mouth, bringing it up short in spite of its fear. The other two rushed past him, shadowed shapes, riding Hel for leather. But Leif wheeled his horse round, side on, silhouetted against the moon, between the mounds. And with arms held high he stared Grimnir full in his hateful grey face, and shouted at the hills to either side.
‘Shoulders of old Ymir,
Overthrow your shackles!
Arise again! Make me
A wall against Odin.’
Then Leif, spent from his exertions, could hold his horse no longer. It shot round and fled the rushing wolves, and he clung tight to keep his seat. In his ears was a low rumbling, like distant thunder. But it grew ever louder, to the tumble of an avalanche, to the crack and crash of two great icebergs coming together.
And then Leif found that he had stopped. That they had all three of them stopped, and turned, to see the grave-hills growing, gushing like earthen geysers, like three rippling volcanoes rising, rising – a dormant giant shrugging loose his shoulders and straightening his back.
It was a solid wall of earth, high as a hill behind them, and from the far side there came only yelps and whines as the Hunt found its path blocked.
‘How long till they find a way around it?’ said Astrid.
‘Who knows? Enough, perhaps?’ said Jaska. She was whispering, awed. Even Astrid looked impressed. But then she pulled herself together. ‘It’s bought us time,’ she said. ‘Now we must reach the temple.’
It lay before them in a low valley. And they rode into it, as if into a dream. Or into a nightmare.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The moon’s glare flashed white from a high roof, towering, broad. Though still far from them, it must be made of metal, to shine like that in even so little light. But between that beacon and themselves lay a wood of enormously tall trees. Stately, even godly figures, sylvan sentinels.
‘Like Jelling’s grove, before they cut it down,’ said Leif.
Astrid sniffed. She had caught the scent of something on the wind. Something bad.
‘More like Jelling was than you know,’ she said, and her mind went back to that sticky spring day, long blocked from her mind, when Knut had sought her help in making the sacrifices.
Their horses slowed as they neared the trees. For all their haste, none of them quite wanted to stray into their shadows, under their branches. The spreading dark might swallow them whole.
‘Come on,’ said Jaska. ‘They’re only trees.’ And she spurred her reluctant mount onwards.
Leif’s flesh crept as they entered the grove, his hackles rising. He had heard tell of Uppsala as a place of dance and song, drinking and joking and merry celebration. This was different, a strange and spectral glade where your mind played tricks, so you thought you saw shapes spinning and twisting in the trees; shadows that looked like men or beasts, when they could only be broken branches.
He looked more closely. They were men and beasts. Swinging from rope ends.
Each tree bore its own strange fruit. They crowded in on him, swinging close, swinging clear. Birds. Cattle. Dogs. Horses. Men.
‘So many dead,’ whispered Jaska. ‘I knew your people were cruel, but –’ she could say no more.
‘We don’t do this,’ said Astrid. ‘Animals, yes – I always hated that – but never to each other. This is all wrong.’
‘This is not the faith of our people,’ said Leif. ‘No more than were the stones near Trelleborg.’ The bodies were bloated, flyblown, eyes bulging. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
‘Faster,’ said Astrid. ‘We must get out of this place.’
ᛘ
Soon they had cleared the trees. Each felt a weight like a millstone lift from their backs – though it was none too pleasant to have those corpses behind you, knowing they were there but not looking at them. Who could tell if they dropped from their ropes and crept about when none was watching?
But before them the high walls of the temple were rising, separated from the dread wood that still spread to either side only by a gurgling spring, the water dark as oil and its music the sound of an uncanny chuckle. A demon or goblin might laugh like that: no water should.
‘Jump it,’ Astrid suggested, and they rode their horses over the broiling spring. No one dared think what might happen to the unlucky person who missed their step and fell into those black waters. It was clear now that the temple stood at the wood’s centre, not its edge, and that the grim trees met on the far side, encircling them, closing them in. Not that it really mattered. But the thought of being hemmed in by all those silent swinging bodies made it at once a little harder to breathe.
‘Some place for a last stand,’ muttered Jaska.
If there was irony laced through her words, then Astrid missed it. ‘You never said a truer word!’ she gasped. She was looking at the temple.
It soared above them, and now they could all see plainly that its roof was wrought, not from iron, or even bronze, but from pure gold. Golden shingles fell in rows like the scales of a gargantuan dragon, high above their heads, and a thick gold chain dangled in loops from the gables like a maiden’s tresses on high holiday. It was a fantastical place, like nothing any of them had ever seen. The sort of place a priest might dream into being, not a place that men would ever build. But there it was. Their final hope.
One tree alone stood beside the door, so tall that it overtopped the temple itself, its canopy spreading across the star-strewn sky. To their immense relief, no bodies dangled from its mighty branches. Its trunk was a sinuous great twisting of serpentine strands and weatherworn runnels. It was a yew tree.
Leif gaped. ‘It might as well be Yggdrasil itself.’ Never had he seen anything more like the World Tree, the centre of his faith and his imagination. It gave him courage.
‘It’s a weakness in our defences,’ said Astrid. ‘Except, I suppose, that wolves can’t climb – even these ones?’ No one knew. ‘At least there’s only one entrance,’ she said. ‘Inside! We’ve wasted enough time.’ And she slipped off Hestur’s back, and flung apart the golden doors.
ᛚ
‘Ow! It’s dark as Hel in here,’ Astrid cursed, rubbing a stubbed toe. Not quite the grand entrance she had been hoping to make – at least no one could see her blushing.
‘Leif, do that thing with the light. Hurry!’
All three were inside, dismounted, and Leif murmured a dim glow into existence. The first things they saw were braziers by the door, flints and oil, and a heavy wooden plank propped upright against the wall.
‘First things first,’ said Astrid. ‘We must bar the door.’
It took all of them to lift the cold, massive beam. ‘It must be bog oak,’ Astrid grunted, but no one else could spare breath to reply. Finally it shuddered into place, resting in iron hooks riveted to the great golden doors, and they rubbed backs, mopped brows.
Jaska was the first to turn and see the kind of place they were in. So it was she who saw him first, and her scream rang clear through the sacred space.
He was sat in an oaken throne, garbed in chain mail, twice the height of any mortal man. The low green light of Leif’s charm slid around and off his features, cold, evil. He leered at them with his one left eye.
‘That’s … that’s Odin, isn’t it?’ Jaska said.
‘It’s only a statue,’ said Astrid. ‘No need to panic.’
‘But,’ said Jaska, ‘but if he’s here – I mean, if he’s worshipped here – then isn’t this still his kingdom? And this is no refuge, but a trap!’
‘But we saw the Hunt ride upon the earth,’ said Leif. ‘If this were Odin’s hall, they would have flown.’
‘Torches!’ said Astrid, and lit the two massive braziers, guttering red flame, spilling light around the hall. And the shadows unstuck themselves from the statue, and they all saw that it was not one god, but three, and Odin was simply the nearest.
Even Astrid was impressed. Three vast figures on three great thrones. In the centre was Thor, his beard full, his stone hammer in hand. The god of her eldest brother Knut, who had died in Ireland, and her mother Thyre, who had left her. It was some comfort to see him there, sat on high, but with a bite beneath the comfort. Like grit in porridge.
Odin sat at Thor’s right hand. On the far side was Frey, god of the harvest and of birth, and he had been carved with a huge … Well, Astrid didn’t really like to think about it. And as her eyes ran around the room, she saw more carvings, on pillars, on the walls – Njord, Freyja, Tyr, Heimdall and the rest – all the gods and goddesses of her faith.
‘So Odin is but one of many here,’ said Leif. ‘And that explains why he wields no power. The Allfather fancies himself a king, and a king cannot rule among equals.’
‘I like it,’ said Jaska. ‘All this magic here for you to draw on, so little of it his …’
Astrid turned away, irritated despite herself. They were only commoners; it wasn’t fair to expect them to understand why you needed one strong ruler in a savage world. Someone to defend the helpless from attack. From attack. Why were they wasting time talking?
‘Jaska,’ she said. ‘Check the windows; make sure there’s no way in. Then I want you on watch.’ She drew breath. ‘Leif. Time to get thinking. We need a great poem. Your best.’ He looked pale, Astrid thought. Tired. ‘Remember … remember your hero, Egil Skallagrimsson. Remember the time he was a prisoner in England.’ This was a story Leif himself had told her. ‘He invented a poem that saved his life; that won his pardon from Erik Bloodaxe.’ Of course, if the rumours were true, Erik Bloodaxe had been sort of her brother-in-law … She shook her head, angry at her inability to concentrate, and looked Leif in the eyes. ‘We need a poem like that now.’
‘Of course, Egil had a whole night to think,’ said Leif.
She glowered at him. ‘Then you’d better get started.’ And she realised something. She was cross, tired, hungry. Her toe really stung. And – it would be stupid not to admit it – she was really rather scared. But more than that. This was the best she’d felt in ages. Perhaps since she’d stood in the prow of the Klaastad and sung down a storm, wrecked a ship. She was in charge. And whether this was really a last stand, or only Odin’s way of testing her, it would be on her terms. She would show a god what she was made of. And more than that. She would show herself.
‘Show me, in blood, what is to be your will.’
That was what he had said, the one-eyed god, when he offered her a place at his side, a life beyond death. Her will. Whatever it took, she would show him. Whatever it took.
ᛦ
Firelight rippled from panels of beaten gold, snaked among high rafters. In one corner paced Leif, trying out phrases, kennings, alliteration. Around him, they had corralled the horses, nervous, big, powerful: the last line of defence. With every verse that fell into place, Leif was growing in confidence. The power of that place was seeping into him, the potency of ages, of a whole land. He could bring down a hunter and his pack, however terrible. Hadn’t he bested an angel, after all?
Jaska was curled into a cramped window ledge. The only openings in the walls were thin arrow slits – perfect – enough to see by, not enough to let anyone in. And she had her bow strung, and a full quiver slung at her waist. Unblinking, she stared at the moon-washed grove, the way they had come: the spring, the open ground. Only the yew tree was out of sight. She’d have time for one, perhaps two shots, if they tried to rush the doors. She licked dry lips. Every moment, it was harder to see. Anything might be moving among those grim, dark trees, where the bodies swung and the shadows crept. A world slashed black and grey. A world that was waiting.
A world now streaked with rain. For Astrid was sat at the foot of the three statues, her harp in her lap. She had heard of too many hall-burnings to risk one here. Too many brave heroes denied their last fight by a canny enemy with a handful of torches. So she was playing the clouds into rain, wetting the hall, dampening the summer-dried timbers that supported the golden roof with a steady trickle of dancing minor chords.
The tune felt good. From the waist up, she was swaying now, entering the rhythm. Her fingers itched to take the tune on, and she let them lead her.
From high above, there came the low rumble of thunder.
Jaska looked up. ‘Astrid!’ she said. ‘Careful. The rain will count for nothing if you bring a lightning strike down on our heads!’
Startled, Astrid flung down the harp. Jaska was right – she should know when to stop. But Jaska didn’t know how it felt, to shape the skies, to weave the weather. Her head was a little giddy. Turning, she saw Thor, the thunder god, scowling down at her from his throne. Maybe she could have picked a better spot to sit …
‘Jaska,’ she said, getting up and stretching. ‘Any sign?’
