Adalwulf: The Two Swords (Tales of Germania Book 1) (17 page)

I took some steps back, but the river was there, below a bank of mud and sand, and I had no place to go.
Gods curse me for being an idiot
, I thought, and begged for a quick end. It was not likely.

I looked around, and three men were advancing on me with hunting bows, clutching at bundles of arrows. As I had no shield, they would simply kill me or wound me before taking their time to send me to another world. “Why,” I asked, “would I care about your name? I’ve certainly not heard it before. But why should I, since they don’t sing songs of cowards who ambush men in the woods.”

He didn’t care enough to show anger. Instead, he shrugged. “You’re not from these parts, Chatti. You’d know better otherwise. And a man should know the name of the one to slay him,” he chuckled. “It is likely they will ask for it in Valholl. Fight now, fight well, and go there. I hear everyone thinks you are a wonderful fighter, and so you’ll get to show us just how good you are.”

“I take it Leuthard doesn’t want to give me a fighting chance, eh?” I asked. “Why don’t you fight me one-on-one,
famous
Helm, and if I win, I’ll walk free?”

Helm shrugged, smiling.
No
, was the obvious answer.

I lifted my hammer, and put my back against a tree. The horses moved closer, the spears were flashing, and the archers, trying to keep an eye on me in the shadowy ferns came forward.

Helm winked at his brother, the brother whistled, the archers raised their bows, and Woden helped me enough to shrug off the fear. The god changed my desperation into anger, then rage. His savage voice sounded in my head, demanding deaths, and so I fought for my life. I rolled to the muddy ground, and heard warning shouts. Arrow slashed above me; one went past me to hit the river with a plodding sound, and another cut the ferns near me. I got up, knowing they would reload in an eye blink, and saw the horses milling nearby. I charged for them.

Helm spat and moved his horse for me, the spear reaching for my chest, and I slapped the hammer across my vision with desperation, and hit the spear’s tip. Sparks flew, another horse tried to flank me. The arrows flew again, and a horseman screamed and clutched his leg, where an arrow jutted. The horse whinnied with fear as the man tried to jerk it around. I fidgeted in the middle of the beasts, pushed at Helm’s horse, making it bolt, and jumped at the man who was late coming to the fight, the man I thought was Helm’s brother.

I reached up in the dark, took a heavy club strike on my shoulder, but got a hold of his beard. I held on as I jerked him down, but he tried to hold on to the horse, yelling with pain, and the horse fell. We rolled, fell down the bank to the river’s edge, and both lost our weapons, as we grappled. He was strong, probably stronger than I was, as he rolled on top, his fist coming down.

I didn’t care for the pain. I shrugged it off. Woden’s anger hammered inside my skull as I managed to put my hand on his face, then in his eyes, and he screamed in pain as I pressed them savagely. We rolled twice, and ended up in the freezing water. There, yelling with desperation, I pushed him under me, exerting all my strength, and pinned his snarling face under my knee, and pushed it below water. He flailed desperately, trying to beat me off. I saw Helm on his horse, heard him screaming at the archers, and they appeared. I cursed, wanting to take one man with me to Valholl.

Woden helped me one more time.

My hand landed on my hammer, and I picked it up. I lifted it lightning fast and slammed the shaft down at the face under the dark water, and the shaft broke the surface and the face. The man convulsed, his back arched, as I staggered up and away from him, as he slowly drifted away with the river, looking like some hideous water-spirit.

“Ivarr!” Helm screamed, his horse prancing around, and then the archers lifted their weapons. I considered diving to the river, but I couldn’t swim, and didn’t want to die like that, ending up in Goddess R
á
n’s nets in her gray land of the drowned. I turned to face them. I closed my eyes.

I was saved at the last moment.

Spears and javelins flew in the air.

One archer fell down the bank, his arrows breaking under him. Another turned in shock, holding his shoulder, where another javelin protruded, and the third released the arrow in haste, missing my face by hair’s breath. He ran into the darkness. There were eerie screams and yells, and the archer no doubt died there.

Helm blanched, hesitated, looked at me with such malice I should have died. He pulled his horse away, as men were rushing near, and forced the horse into the darkness. His laughter and mocking curses could be heard as men chased after him, and I staggered up to the bank see a line of men in the shadows.

It was Teutorigos and the thin Celt, Iodocus.

The old Celt was kicking a moaning heap of a man, who went quiet, and he looked around, as if expecting someone else. “No Leuthard?”

“No,” I said, breathless. “I think not. I cannot be sure.”

“He would have showed his murderous snout, if he had been around,“ Iodocus said calmly and then flashed me a huge smile. “But you survived. Ingrid rushed to tell me you left the hall.”

I laughed, relieved. “I did.”

Teutorigos was not smiling, though, but cursing, and he snorted. “So, I hope you have another plan.”

“This was not my plan,” I said.

“Not your plan?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

I shook my head, embarrassed. “No. It was their plan. I rushed into a trap like a fool. They had my horse.”

Teutorigos shook his head. “And you are to lead this endeavor. Fool. I was visiting my men in the hill, saw Ingrid rush in, and thought you had done your bit very well indeed, and here I am, killing mere servants. Waste of time. I’ll return to my hall, but these men will be around, as you know.”

“I know,” I growled.

He shook his head. “Build a plan, idiot, and do not let them corral you. I take it they didn’t believe you? Ingrid told us you failed in that as well.”

I nodded, angered by his abusive manner, and I was worried. Had Leuthard been there, would he still be alive, if Teutorigos got his hands around the man’s throat? He seemed desperate and impatient. Maybe desperate enough to forget Hulderic’s sword. “They didn’t believe me. But that was likely.”

He laughed dryly. “How surprising it is they would not believe you!” He looked down to the waterline. “Two got away, but at least my hammer claims lives still. Keep at it.”

“I will,” I said, not sure I could. I shivered in the aftermath of my near death, and climbed up the bank. I stopped to look around. All the archers were dead. Two of the horsemen escaped. I looked up at Teutorigos, and found a blank, brutal face looking down at the dead. I addressed him. “When, if, we catch him, you must keep him alive. For Hulderic. For a while, at least. Some of these men might have known something useful, as well.”

He growled. “I know the plan. And as for these dogs, they know nothing. I took two such men yesterday in the woods, Bero’s servants, and they squealed for hours. They know nothing.”

I shuddered at the thought of the torture, and wondered if the lord was spirit-taken in his hate. “I’ll get him. Then you’ll play with him. But he’ll die when we have the weapon.”

He didn’t answer, but nodded darkly, and Iodocus gave me a warning shake of head. “Will you go back now?” the thin Celt asked, and nudged me.

“I will,” I said. “Thank you.”

They turned to go, and Iodocus snapped his fingers at me and thumbed towards the woods. He would take me home, I guessed, and I followed him. He was better in the woods than Bait, and I could soon see lights shining ahead from the hill’s many halls. His men were around us in the shadows.

“How crazy is he?” I finally asked.

He stiffened with indignation at first, but shrugged after a while. “The lord,” Iodocus said softly, “may have forgotten Hulderic’s sword. You would not have enjoyed seeing what he did with those two servants of Bero yesterday.”

“Do we really need him there when … if I figure out a way to Leuthard?” I asked him.

He smiled in the dark. “He’ll be there. He keeps visiting the hill. He’s gone mad with the loss of Cerunnos. Unbalanced. He spies on us as well. He is sending men all over the place to find the bandits, in case they were locals after all. He pays men to find out if someone has heard of Raganthar. He sent his daughters over the river, to relatives. Probably thinks he’ll die trying to get his vengeance. And what he did to those two Marcomanni?” He was silent, but it was clear he was shaken. “We’ll have to keep Leuthard alive for a time, if we catch him. You and I.” He nudged me.

“Why do you care?” I asked him. “You serve the Celt.”

“I’m a Gaul, and some Gauls are faithful to the death, but you know Hulderic is a fine lord. He has many people on the hill, and Bellows was only one. He has Ingrid.”

I stared at him. “And he has you. Bellows said he has few friends, because he refused to pay for them. Was he wrong?”

He grinned. “He pays
some
very well. Hulderic pays me well, and one day, I’ll serve him, when I’m of no more use to Teutorigos. Hulderic spies on his friends as well, and it’s wise in Hard Hill, in case such friends host you, and suddenly take coin from Bero. I’ll do my best to help you, though I’m not sure I can fool Teutorigos when the time comes. And when will that be?” he asked me.

“I don’t know how to trap that man,” I told him honestly.

He shrugged. “Inspiration strikes when you are not thinking about it. Have fun. Get drunk. Have a girl. Ask for advice from Ingrid, find a way, or it will be—” He gasped with terror. He stopped walking, shaking his head.

I passed him, holding the hammer, and stopped as well, trying to fathom what I was seeing.

There was a large beech tree, and it stood in the middle of a well-used hunting path. Men often hung their prey there as they skinned and prepared the meat, and so it had been used again.

There was a body of a boy hanging on the tree. It had been impaled into some broken branches, and the arms were stretched on its sides.

“Bait,” I whispered, and knew it must be, though I couldn’t be sure, because the skin had been torn from his face. The scared boy’s jaw, skin, nose and eyes hung in tatters of bloody, wet mess as his head rested on his chest. His belly was open, and an incredible about of snake-like guts wound their way down his legs to the ground, where blood was thick.

“Gods, above and below and far across the horizons,” Iodocus said, “What did this?”

“Leuthard,” I whispered, and felt his eyes on me, gauging, tormenting, and enjoying a game that was now very personal.

Iodocus was shaking. “Shit. He’s seen me now. Probably the others as well. He knows what’s hunting him. You had best figure out a way to take him, or we will all end up like that,” Iodocus said with a small, scared voice. “Find something he values. Make him react to you. You must,” he whispered, and shuddered as Bait’s hair rustled in the wind, “play the game as he plays it, without remorse. There is no honor here, only survival. Find out what he fears, or needs. Do it fast.”

“I will,” I said resolutely, and walked up the hill to find Ingrid, who welcomed me with a worried face and frowned at my condition.

I thanked her, and told her of Bait.

She cried for an hour, and I held her, and tried to figure out a way to trap the Beast of Bero.

I came up with nothing.

T
he issue was simple. I had no idea what Leuthard’s weakness was. I had no time to think about Bero’s either, and I was failing both Hulderic and Balderich.

The death of Bait thrust me into shocked inactivity. I could see his faceless, sad death in my waking moments and dreams alike. Ingrid did as well, because despite the warnings, she was the one who went to bury him. Balderich roared, demanded the culprit be found, but the look he gave me told me he guessed much of the issue, and he couldn’t react. I tried to plan. I tried it all the time. I might as well have tried to court the goddess Freya.

I was terrified, I realized. Of Leuthard. Of failure. What sort of man did something like that to a boy?

No man
.

Certainly no sane man. Some animals did, but they also ate the body.

And since Bait’s face had been missing, perhaps Leuthard did as well?

Not possible,
I thought, and knew I wasn’t sure.

I spent days in the hall, eating and resting, my wound oozing a bit, but not too badly. Whenever I left the hall, I felt like a lost fox cub, looking over my shoulder, no matter if Iodocus had men watching me. “Adalwulf, the Wise,” I whispered to myself every morning I woke covered with cold sweat, after which I spent the day fretting, and in the evening, I sat down on my bed, listened to Balderich feast his quests, and fidgeted, knowing I should do something soon.

On the third day after the death of Bait, I was in such a state, that even Leuthard would have felt sorry for me. I was disheveled, had a harried look on my face, and by nightfall, I sat in my room again, holding my knees. “What Leuthard fears?” I chuckled to myself. “Not anything on two legs, for sure,” I added, and went quiet as a warrior passing my room gave me a queer look. I banged my head on my knees when he was gone and felt sorry for myself. “Frigg’s frozen tits, but what am I to do?” I moaned, and then Ingrid sat next to me. She had not been around for the past days, and I had actually missed her. My eyes rested on hers, and I realized she was a pretty girl, a slave since ten, but wise and worthy of note. I needed help.

“Are we done feeling sorry for ourselves?” she asked tiredly. “You and me both?”

“Not quite,” I answered, and she frowned. “Yes, we are?” I tried again, and she gave me a vigorous hug, which felt nice, surprisingly much so considering how miserable I had just felt. I let her cling to me, and I clung to her. Bero had men like Leuthard, I had the girl and a thin Celt with some men, but she was a good ally, wise to the ways of the village. I suspected she was far smarter than I. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’ve been a bit lost,” I added, and she pushed me back, looking into my eyes. Then came the inevitable question.

“Have you thought of something you might do to get that bald, ham-faced fucker in an early grave mound?” she asked.

“Ah! No,” I answered. “I’ve been trying though. Hard. Nothing comes to mind! So can you come up with something? What should I do?”

“Men,” she cursed as she got up quickly, a quizzical look on her face. She walked around, holding her hips, and kicked my ankle painfully. “Anything but this.”

“What?”

“Do anything but this! Sit around this damned hall, moping.”

“You have been moping as well,” I told her with a frown.

“I knew Bait, you didn’t,” she sighed, and of course she was right. “Anyway, he is buried now, and we have to do something more than this. Fine, both of us must.”

“It’s
we
now?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry,” she said, turning me around and groping for the wound under my tunic. I fought her, and she pushed me until she managed to get her way, and I lifted the up the tunic. Her fingers opened the wrapping, and I flinched as she pulled some skin with it. She was nodding, I saw that much. “The wound is healing nicely. You are lucky it didn’t tear open when they tried to kill you. Don’t break the scab. You might, you know, if you keep twitching on this bed. Iodocus was asking for you. Teutorigos is growing impatient.”

I snarled. “That man. I’d rather not have Teutorigos present if I
do
figure out a plan that might work. He is unstable,” I said. “I will ask for their help when I know what to do, but not his.” I rubbed my face, despondent. “I have too many responsibilities. It’s like trying to find a specific end of a horribly jumbled pile of threads, and there are far too many ends,” I cursed. “Balderich’s demands are not helping any more than those made by Teutorigos and Hulderic. Perhaps I should get out of the hall, but I have taken walks, and they gave me no help.”

She grunted as she bound the wound. “The enemy is getting restless as well. Leuthard’s men have been looking for you since his men died in the woods,” she said uneasily. “He has sent men to the hall, some asking for your health. Others have been asking servants if you have any habits you keep repeating. He is looking for another way to slay you, all right. Nothing’s changed, and Balderich cannot do much about that.”

“At least I have his attention,” I laughed, frowning at the hysterical tone in my voice. “Perhaps I should develop a habit. I could bathe in the river every evening, and then I might capture him in a fishing net hidden under water. Truss him up, carry him to this room, and gut him like a trout.”

“Shut up,” she said unkindly. “And as you know, twilight and night are his time,” she said and squeezed my arm. “They say you should never hunt him during the night. Don’t meet him alone in some dark alley. Never alone.”

“I could do it during the day, then,” I wondered, and rubbed my face tiredly. “A bath. Nets. Gods help me.”

She shook her head, and rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Adalwulf. You have to come up with something better than that.”

“Oh, its only me again,” I growled. “How can I even capture him in the village? The hill’s so busy, someone would rush to Bero, complaining. What in Hel’s name
can
we do?”

She shrugged. “Perhaps, since this hill is his hunting ground, you cannot do it here?”

I stared at her, and knew she was right. I pushed at the hay in my bed, and went to lie on it, looking at the ceiling. “Where, then?” I asked. “Gisil mentioned he is hated all across the lands. If I had free hands, I’d use his enemies to capture him,” I said, thinking aloud but went quiet as I thought of Gisil.
Was she alive?
Ingrid put her hand on mine, and I squeezed it.

“You
have
free hands,” she said, and pushed my side. “Nobody said you have to capture him here. And you can do anything you like, no? Use anyone, even?” I tried letting go of her hand, because I felt like scum due to Gisil, who had not really promised me anything, but Ingrid hung on to mine like a dog to a juicy bone. “They are nice hands, Adalwulf, very nice, but you must start using your brain. There.” She tapped my head. “Be imaginative. Do anything. You will find a good way to get to it, if you apply yourself.”

“My father and uncle used to say things like that, but I never did manage,” I said. “How much time do we have, anyway?”

She shrugged, and cast an eye in the general direction of Balderich’s voice booming in the main hall. “I wouldn’t over enjoy the feasts in the Red Hall, and the ale
is
slowing your thinking. You have to do this in a week, or one day,
you
will be the feast in the Red Hall. There are dogs, you know. I love Balderich, our lord, but he has limits to his patience. I’ve seen him lose it. Not something you wish to witness up close.”

Indeed there were dogs in the hall, and while Balderich had been a gracious host, even I had noticed he had been staring at me coldly for the past days. Ingrid was right. “So, I have free hands. I have to get Leuthard out of Hard Hill. But we cannot just burst into his hall, kill his servants, and drag him off.”

“No, love. You need allies that might surprise Leuthard. He knows who we are,” she said huskily, and I remembered Bait mentioning she was looking for a man. I knew she had found him as she draped a hand on my neck, looking around carefully so no one might witness us, and nodded to the direction of the river. “It’s pretty active along the shores and the harbor. They say there are lots of Roman ships rowing up and down this spring, but I’ve only seen the few traders. Fishing’s been good as well. Helmut, a warrior in Balderich’s band, caught something that was bigger than his dog.”

“Oh?” I said with a smile. “We had some fine fishing in the mountain rivers, and some scaled monsters that could have eaten a dog.”

Her face sobered. “No, this catch had been a man,” she told me. “One from the villages below. A broken husk of a former man. Bait’s not the only one, you see, to displease Leuthard.”

“I bet he wasn’t,” I said, wondering why she spoke of the beautiful river, happy feats in fishing, and then turned it into a tale of rot and sorrow.

“It was a man of Fulch the Red. The great man—“

“I’ve seen the man,” I said. “Wide-shouldered and famous. He displeased Leuthard the other day.”

“Fulch is a greasy brute,” Ingrid said with a shudder. “He puts his hands where he shouldn’t during the feasts.”

“I—” I shot up, but she put her face near me, and I fell back.

“Will shut up.” She squeezed my hand, very close to me. “You are a hot-headed idiot, but a nice idiot compared to most of fools we entertain. You are sort of fresh, not spoiled by power, rewards, position, and battlescars. Stay that way for a while.” She rested her head on my chest, and I struggled to keep myself from not getting too comfortable with her. “When you go and fight for Hulderic, I think it will do you good. Eventually, that is. It’s less rotten over there in his lands. People are real. And perhaps, you know, I will as well? That was the plan, wasn’t it?”

“Iodocus might go, too,” I blurted to hide my confusion.

She misunderstood and frowned. “He is welcome to. But I was thinking about you and I, and not him at all. Are you thinking about him?”

I opened my mouth.

Gisil.

I thought about Gisil, but Ingrid was real. She was there, and just as beautiful, but love didn’t work like that, thanks to the malice of the gods. I only thought of Gisil, I realized, but gave her a smile I hoped was non-binding. It failed as she read something in that smile that gave her heaps of hope. She kissed my cheek. I failed to stop myself from getting aroused, and begged she wouldn’t notice. Her eyes rounded, she moved and pressed herself against me, and her face was blushed and serious, and I knew I was in trouble.

“Here’s what I’m thinking, Adalwulf. Think on this. Fulch serves Balderich, but has to take his orders from Bero. He was a young man when he joined Balderich’s band of warriors, and one of those few men who built this gau into what it is now. His hall is right there, near the Red Hall. Bero lives down hill near the harbor, and Leuthard even further. But the fact remains, Bero came, dazzled, built, and managed, while Fulch fought, but fighting doesn’t feed the villages.”

“I see,” I said, my hand on her shoulder.

“Bero could soon buy a dozen such fighting champions for the Marcomanni. Now, Fulch is just one of the champions, since Balderich has left much of the management of Hard Hill’s affairs to Bero. And Bero favors Leuthard, and what can Fulch do? There will always be one who is higher than the greasy spitball. Leuthard hates him back. That’s why Fulch’s men occasionally die mysteriously.”

“Leuthard hates everyone,” I stated and nodded. “You say Fulch might help with the issues we have? Does he know any weakness in Leuthard?” She was pressing herself on me softly. I found I had put a hand on her rump, and pressed her to me. She groaned softly.

I was a bastard, I thought, but didn’t take the hand off.

She shook her head vigorously, her hair brushing my face, and she was whispering to my ear. “I doubt it. Fulch has been looking for weaknesses in Leuthard, like we have. He has been speaking against him with the other champions, but Leuthard is a hard one to catch,” she said huskily. “He drinks moderately, he boasts but delivers, and he thinks deeply and never betrays Bero, at least so openly that he might get caught. The rest of them squabble, thinking how to increase their fame and lands, and how to fatten their cows at the expense of the others. They guard their own riches, never co-operate, and so Leuthard will never be truly challenged. Few would dare, anyway. He gets his share of the loot and slaves on time. He is like the most faithful hound, and gets well-rewarded for it. He is Bero’s best man, and Bero trusts him. Fulch doesn’t know his weakness. But Fulch can help.”