A Burning Sea Read online

  Erlan. So was he the key?

  How hard had she tried to erase every trace of him from her mind? How many times had she suppressed his memory and buried it deep beyond her conscious thoughts? Their love had had to die – a corpse she had laid to rest inside a barrow-tomb. And yet here it was again like some revenant wight, knocking and knocking to be released into the light.

  She suddenly gathered up Einar’s hands in hers. ‘Will you come with us?’ She realized as she spoke that she had already assumed Gerutha would stay with her. She dropped one of Einar’s big paws and seized Gerutha’s hand instead so that all three stood facing one another. ‘Both of you are with me?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Einar.

  ‘Aye,’ echoed Gerutha. ‘To the end.’

  ‘Then I am strong already,’ Lilla murmured and smiled. ‘We leave tonight. Here’s what we shall do.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Erlan and Leikr stayed in the village two days while Ramedios and his crew completed their business. All the while locals came swarming out of the surrounding country like ants to spilled honey.

  The hours of trading were long, the barter hard. Erlan doubted there was any man could best Ramedios in a trade, even in the busy northern markets of Sigtuna or Helgö. When the time came to reload their cargo, not an ounce of it was the same. Where before, Ramedios had carried manufactured goods – glass beads, containers of wine and oil, delicate wares like mirrors and drinking vessels, and finely wrought weapons – his men now stowed bales of fur, quantities of bone and antler, honey-pots by the dozen, barrels of millet grain, and, of course, slaves.

  Ramedios didn’t like dogs. Thus, Aska’s passage came at the cost of a silver arm-ring, leaving Erlan with only two others and the gold torc around his neck. Leikr hadn’t a scrap of hack-silver to his name. As to their own passage, their weapons were sufficient recompense, should they be called upon to use them. Erlan had traded his seax knife for a decent spear to arm Leikr. He had his ring-sword. With any luck, they wouldn’t need either until they reached this place called Byzantium.

  Leikr was quiet, muted by his grief for his brother. Erlan remembered losing Kai. No words could have brought him comfort back then, only time could do that. And so he let Leikr be.

  Instead he observed Ramedios. There was a restlessness about the captain that drew his eye. He would pace the decks, barking out orders, as if the force that carried the ship southward found its origin in him. More surprising was that he took an interest in Erlan. At first only a few moments at a time. He’d catch Erlan’s attention, point at something, then say the word in his language. At night, when the crew were bedded down and Leikr curled up beside Aska in the bows, Ramedios sat up with Erlan and they wrestled their way through words and gestures towards some sort of understanding, until even Erlan felt he had given a reasonable account of where they were from. And as the Dnipar grew wider, Erlan decided that he liked the man and was grateful to learn from him the tongue of the Hellenes, as Ramedios called his own people. ‘But most know us by another name. Graikoi.’

  The Greeks.

  It was a sweet day when Erlan smelled salt on the air. He dragged himself forward to where Leikr was gripping the bow-post, gazing out to the horizon.

  ‘You can taste it, can’t you?’ said Leikr.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘The Black Sea. . . My father always said whoever reached here entered the gateway to another world.’

  ‘I guess we’ll find out. You and me, huh?’

  ‘I guess.’ Leikr’s eyes were shadow-ringed and dull compared to how they used to look. ‘I never imagined a life without my brother. Even though he’d drive me half-mad, I. . . I always thought he’d be there.’

  ‘He was a good lad. A good man.’ He put his hand on Leikr’s shoulder. ‘You’ve got a lot of life left to live, my friend. Remember that. And who knows what lies out there?’ Ahead, the sun was breaking through scudding clouds and glittering off the waves. ‘Fame and fortune, maybe. That’d be something to return to your father with, hey?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Leikr said dully. ‘But it would have been better to share it with Adalrik.’

  ‘A man’s fate finds him out. The Norns weave the thread of his life and –’ he shrugged – ‘so it goes.’ That was what folk told each other in the north anyway – to mellow the bitterness of life’s cup. It had always seemed cold comfort to him. But he had nothing better to offer.

  Once at sea, their course swung west, then south, following the coastline. The ship, though sturdy enough, was no sea-wolf bounding over the wave-tops. Heavy with its precious cargo, she wallowed through the swell like a pregnant sow, and Ramedios dared not stray too far from shore.

  Erlan had never much liked the sea but in spite of that, he felt calm. When he thought back over the vast distances they had journeyed, the endless forests and plains, the apparently never-ending rivers that had now ended, to be here on the open sea seemed nothing short of a marvel. The horizon whispered with promise. Miklagard – or Byzantium as he now thought of it – the king of kings, the unbinding of the Witch King’s curse. Disparate things perhaps, and yet they all seemed to weave together in his head into one desire. Into one destiny.

  Yet even as his own spirit felt buoyed with these thoughts, he noticed something had set the crew on edge. He asked Ramedios about it. ‘It’s this coastline,’ the captain explained. ‘It is dangerous. Peiratés.’

  Thieves of the sea.

  The same unease settled on the slaves who, till then, had been docile as cattle. There were nearly three dozen of them, about half were women and children, and all cramped into a space that would not have served even half a dozen oxen. The men were chained neck and wrist to benches below the deck and when the wind slackened or took against them, they were forced to row. One night some of them wouldn’t settle and took to wailing, keeping the crew awake. Soon enough the slave-master had silenced them with his whip.

  But maybe these poor souls possessed the far sight, because next break of dawn the lookout cried alarm.

  The crew on duty rushed to the steer-board rail. Erlan prodded Leikr awake. Before the boy had rubbed his eyes, the hull was groaning as the helmsman swung the bows eastward away from shore. It was a few seconds before Erlan saw it, coming round astern now – a sail black as a raven’s wing on the distant rollers.

  ‘Well, Northman.’ Ramedios’s dry rasp sounded at his shoulder. ‘Time for you to pay your passage.’

  The black sail drew closer all morning. Had the helmsman had the sea-craft of Thor himself, it would’ve made no difference; they were bound to be caught. At least the crew was ready, and Ramedios was ready, seeming all the calmer as he yelled orders up and down the ship.

  ‘Stay close to me,’ Erlan told Leikr. ‘Back to back if you can.’ The prospect of a fight had at least focused the boy’s attention. Some life had come back into his eyes, some fire in his blood.

  ‘Will there be many?’

  ‘I don’t know. But use those long arms of yours. None of ’em will be as tall as you.’

  Erlan untied Aska. He had no idea how the dog would fare if it came to a fight but he figured he stood a better chance unleashed.

  He readied himself. A shame his shield was smashed to splinters and his mail shirt somewhere at the bottom of the Dnipar. But he had something else. Something he had discovered on the plains of Bravik.

  The shouts grew urgent. The wails of the slaves swirled like the gales in the north.

  ‘Ready!’ screamed Ramedios, cloak hitched into his belt, a short, broad blade in his hand.

  ‘Stay close,’ Erlan murmured again, eyes fixed on the onrushing prow. He could see faces in the bows now, shorn heads, curved beards, men half-naked with skin tanned dark as old hall-beams, bristling with steel.

  Erlan tightened his belt. The leather was coarse as bark. It came from a dark place, and carried with it a dark power. The same power he had borne in his blood. He snorted. If Vassili was to be believed, it was the power of demons
. Whatever its source, he needed it now. So he pushed up his sleeve, unsheathed Wrathling and then, laying its wicked edge against his forearm, he cut into his flesh.

  Blood welled, but there was no pain. Instead he felt a kind of pleasure, released into his body in a rush. He put the cut to his mouth, tasted blood and swallowed it down.

  Leikr’s gaze was welded on the other ship. The Greek crewmen were screaming war-cries to the wind. Grappling hooks arced into the air. Erlan’s ears filled with the groan of yawing wood and cries of terror.

  Suddenly a dark heat ripped through him, his own thoughts and fears burning up like dry leaves in a fire. In their place his mind filled with other ancient thoughts, of rage, of blood-hunger, of terrible violence, rising up out of him like Jormungandr, the World Serpent, bursting from the deep. He felt an inhuman strength pouring into his limbs like liquid iron. His vision grew sharp as the fury engulfed him and the first sea-thief leaped aboard. . .

  In the north they called it the berserker madness. Yet when it was on him, he felt there was a beautiful clarity to it. Flesh and bone became a harvest to be reaped. Faces flashed for long enough only to be cut down. Fear became a palpable thing, a wave to ride, radiating out from him. He could not run. Nor could they. And so they fell under Wrathling’s thirsty edge. A dozen. Fifteen. Maybe more. Dark faces. He heard a voice crying terrible curses, screaming to the Slain God to see his work.

  And then something changed. His own mind began to slip back into his head like a returning tide, and suddenly there was a man he had never seen before, cowering against the shear-strake.

  The sailor was jabbering in some ratter-tatter tongue. Erlan smelled the reek of piss. His arm was high, Wrathling poised to fall. But for a second he hesitated. There was blood everywhere. His tunic was soaked red. Men were groaning out their last breath onto the salty air.

  Seeing his distraction, the sailor tried to scramble free, only for a Greek to kick him to the gunwale and pin him there with his spear-point. Erlan spun, only now seeing he was on the other boat.

  Where the Hel was Leikr?

  The fighting was over, more or less. Ramedios was yelling for his men to cease the slaughter. Probably he wanted any marauder still alive chained and stowed in his hold; a sailor taken in battle would be worth good silver where they were going.

  Erlan limped to the steer-board side of the raiders’ ship. The wreckage of battle lay strewn about the deck. Bodies and blades. Broken shields. Abandoned ropes and grapples.

  Still no sign of Leikr or Aska.

  Slowly, the heat in his blood cooled. He could remember almost nothing of what had happened. The stench was vile. The Greeks were congratulating each other, slapping backs and cracking jokes, but seeing him, their faces stiffened. They backed away. He tried to smile, to show them he too was glad of their victory. But he saw only fear in their eyes.

  That was when he saw Leikr.

  The boy’s head was flung back, his mouth wide, his skin pale as snow. There was a huge rent in his torso, half a foot wide from collarbone to belly. He was quite dead.

  ‘Northman.’ Erlan turned. Ramedios was picking his way across the deck. He stopped, breathing hard, and seeing the body at Erlan’s feet, he grunted. ‘Shame.’

  Erlan nodded.

  One of the sailors nearby started speaking to the captain, his gaze flicking warily at Erlan. Ramedios’s expression changed. ‘He says you killed three of my men.’

  Erlan wasn’t sure he had understood. ‘I don’t know how many I killed—’

  ‘No – three of my men.’ The Greek hit his own chest. ‘My men!’ Erlan only saw anger boiling in his face but didn’t know why. ‘He says you killed him too.’ Ramedios’s finger pointed sharply down at Leikr’s body.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This was you. Esý!’ he cried. You. . .

  Realization at last dawned on Erlan. He stared down at the terrible wound he’d inflicted on his only friend. ‘No,’ he whispered in Norse. ‘You’re lying.’ And yet the horror of it made his blood run cold.

  That night was still and cloudless. Erlan huddled closer to Aska, and not just for warmth. He felt need of an ally. The dog, who had cowered his way through the skirmish, was the last he possessed.

  But guilt weighed on him heavier than fear. He couldn’t erase the image of those twin faces, hovering in his mind like ghouls. He felt sick at the thought of what he had done, at the proof of the darkness that dwelt within him. He was cursed, then. Cursed to wander. Cursed to always be alone. An outsider, for ever.

  He wanted to unwind the thread. To go back. To make different choices. To walk a different path. But the awful inevitability of it, the outworking of what he was and who he must become seemed as inexorable as the setting of the sun. At every turn, blood haunted him, blood caked his hands, blood filled his dreams. Yet how could he ever wash it away? It was all he had to offer the world – more blood. What else had he to bring?

  He felt the change around him. A coldness that had nothing to do with the chill of night. He’d heard the word ‘bárbaros’ muttered in the shadows and knew the other sailors were talking about him. So he took himself off with Aska to the bows. There, he curled up with his back to the strakes and watched, a knife salvaged from the fight hidden beside him.

  Long after the rest of the crew had lain down under their cloaks to sleep, Erlan was watching still. Above him, the stars glistened like jewels, but even they seemed remote and unforgiving now, looming over him in judgement. Only Aska seemed oblivious to what he had done and snored away peacefully beside him.

  His lids grew heavy. He pinched himself, murmuring snatches of old skald-songs to stay alert, but it was no good. Sleep rose about him like the tide, swallowing every thought, until at last his fingers slackened and his head lolled against the strakes. . .

  When he dreamed, it was of Bravik again.

  He sees the hard, lifeless features on the face of the Kingshelm, feels the burn in his limbs and the squelch of muddy gore underfoot. He tries to lift his shield but it is heavy as stone. And all about him, spears fall like rain—

  He awoke with a start; the blade was already at his throat. Instinctively his fist jerked shut but found no knife-haft there, only empty air.

  ‘Get up,’ a voice snarled. In response, Erlan slammed his boot into something solid. A man groaned but the blade pressed deeper, fingers snatched his hair and yanked his head back. ‘Hold him, fool. Hold him!’ That was Ramedios. There was a rattle of words, too fast to understand. He discerned four, maybe five shadows.

  ‘Chrysos,’ he gasped – their word for gold – praying they only meant to rob him.

  Ramedios laughed without mirth. ‘I have three men to replace. That costs more than some pretty necklace.’ All the same, he seized the golden torc around Erlan’s throat and jerked it free. The movement lifted the blade clear of Erlan’s jugular just for an instant. Erlan dropped to his knee and rammed his fist into the sailor’s groin. The man doubled over, his blade skittered away. Erlan leaped for it but only knocked it further and then a storm of blows fell on him, pummelling his spine and ribs and kidneys to putty. There was a bark, he heard snarls and slavering jaws, men cursing, but they were too many, with kicks and punches landing everywhere, and finally a cudgel blow broke across his back. He fell flat, stunned. The club rose a second time. There was a yelp. . . and then nothing.

  ‘Slit its throat and be done with it,’ growled one.

  ‘No!’ Ramedios snapped. ‘Tie it up.’ Then he added with a chuckle, ‘Everything has its price. Even that walking carpet.’

  ‘I killed for you, Greek,’ groaned Erlan, his head spinning.

  ‘So you did, Northman. Too many.’

  ‘What shall we do with him?’

  ‘Sling him in the hold. His days as a free man are over.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Rain, thick as fog. Rain to blot out the sun, to soak through wool and flesh and marrow. Rain to drown all hope. . .

  The season was on the
turn. An unpleasant time for seafaring. Lilla didn’t know which was worse – the biting frost of her homeland or this dreary coastline, where warmth and dryness seemed as remote as the stars.

  Their skipper, a shiftless man named Harding, stood leaning on his steer-board, doing his best to catch a weak breeze blowing from the west. Einar sat on their sea-chest gnawing on his fingers. He’d hardly moved off it in three days. The chest contained no clothes, no food, no tools. Only gold – and it was his charge to keep it safe. Gerutha was huddled against the gunwale, trying in vain to keep the rain off with her cloak, which was already soaked through.

  Einar shuffled on his chest. ‘I tell you, after three days of skinning and salting, my arse is about ready for the smokehouse.’

  ‘Sure, there’s enough meat on it to make good eating,’ chuckled Gerutha, the rain dripping off her long, straight nose.

  Dusk was close, but the river traffic was still busy. No one paid them much heed as they drew alongside a rain-slick jetty – an unobtrusive end to their voyage. Harding’s boat had carried them all the way from Sigtuna, across the East Sea and then the Gulf of Estland. Every league of it in foul weather. Lilla was glad it was over. For now at least, she felt safe from the reach of Thrand’s long arm. ‘It doesn’t look like much.’

  ‘This is just the harbour,’ croaked Harding. He pointed a bony finger up into the murk. ‘The ring-fort and Osvald’s hall are up there on the hilltop.’

  Lilla peered through the rain and could just about discern against the gloom the outline of palisade walls and roof pitches. Two beacon-flares gamely flickered on against the drizzle. Lilla wondered what awaited them up there.

  They paid Harding his fee – a couple of slivers of hack-silver – and climbed ashore. Mud was everywhere, glutinous as tar, sucking at her shoes and the hem of her dress. She saw fires burning smokily under wood-shingled shelters, men sitting round them, warming hands and talking in low voices. She supposed they worked the river – fishermen, carpenters, pitch-makers and such – men glad to see the back of another grim day.