Read Fenrir Online

Authors: MD. Lachlan

Fenrir

FENRIR
M.D. LACHLAN
Contents
 

Cover

Title

Dedication

Also by M.D. Lachlan from Gollancz

Part One: Sword Age

1. Wolf Night

2. The Confessor

3. Death and the Raven

4. A Necessary Sacrifice

5. Voices in the Dark

6. Captives

7. An Awakening

8. A Meeting

9. Alone

10. Bargains and Threats

11. Hrafn

12. A Matter of Will

13. The Reward of Honour

14. A Discovery

15. The Agonies of Confessor Jehan

16. Running

17. A Deal

18. Royal Blood

19. A Fight for Saerda

20. Caught

21. Last Rites

22. Helpless

23. Wolf’s Blood

24. At Ladoga

25. A Change of Identity

26. Shelter

27. Munin

28. Ravens

29. Strange Companions

30. A Question of Fear

Part Two: Wolf Age

31. Helgi’s Sacrifice

32. Saved for Christ

33. One Gift Demands Another

34. A Haunting

35. The Valley of the Black Saint

36. Rescue

37. What Happened at Saint-Maurice

38. The Wolfstone

39. Song Everlasting

40. A Commercial Decision

41. A Changed Man

42. The Shattered Lands

43. View of a Monster

44. A Defensive Action

45. Blood on the Sand

46. A Wolf’s Treat

47. Shadow of the Wolf

48. The Word of God

49. A Parting

50. An Encounter with Death

51. Friends and Enemies

52. The Charge

53. A Fireside Tale

54. Dark Magic

55. The Tides

56. Werewolf

57. Alone

58. A Hunting Party

59. The Lamps in the Garden

60. Thought and Memory

61. The Devouring Now

62. An Impediment to the Journey

63. A Choice for Jehan

64. A Seat at the Oar

65. The Ice

66. A Merchant’s Tale

67. A Reckoning at Sea

68. Prayers Unanswered

69. Helgi’s Salvation

70. The Price of Lore

71. The Table of Demons

72. Unexpected Welcome

73. Helgi’s Destiny

74. Brave Fatty

75. A Leap of Faith

76. Down

77. The Dread Wolf Fenrir

78. Byzantium

Acknowledgements

Copyright

To Claire, my wife
 
Also by M.D. Lachlan from Gollancz
Wolfsangel

And he caught the dragon, the old serpent, that is the Devil and Satan; and he bound him by a thousand years. And he sent him into deepness, and closed, and marked on him, that he deceive no more the people, till a thousand years be filled. And he sent him into deepness, and closed, and signed,
or sealed
, upon him, that he deceive no more people, till a thousand years be fulfilled. After these things it behooveth him to be unbound a little time.

THE KING JAMES BIBLE, REVELATION 20: 1–3

When the Æsir saw that the Wolf was fully bound, they took the chain that was fast to the fetter, and which is called Thin, and passed it through a great rock – it is called Scream – and fixed the rock deep down into the earth. Then they took a great black boulder and drove it yet deeper into the earth and used the stone for a fastening-pin. The wolf gaped terribly, and thrashed about and strove to bite them; they thrust into his mouth a certain sword: the guards caught in his lower jaw, and the point in the upper; that is his gag. He howls hideously, and slaver runs out of his mouth: that is the river called Ván; there he lies till the Weird of the Gods.

THE PROSE EDDA
PART ONE
Sword Age
 
1
Wolf Night
 

He had never seen a sight so beautiful as Paris under flame. It was dusk and the smoke lay across the low sun in a long stripe of black like the tail of a dragon, its head dipping to a mouth of fire on the river island town. He looked down from the hill and saw that the towers on the bridges had held: the Franks had repulsed the northern enemy. Though part of one bridge and an abandoned longboat beneath it were on fire, the saffron banners of Count Eudes still flew all around the walls above the water, like little flames themselves answering the dying sun.

Leshii inhaled. There, beneath the smell of the burning wood and the pitch the defenders had hurled down on the invaders was another smell he recognised well. Cremation.

He associated it with the Northmen, with the burning of their dead in their ships. He’d watched them in the aftermath of the battle to take Kiev, pushing the dead rulers Askold and Dir out of the town out onto the lake in a blazing longboat. They’d given them a fine send-off, considering they’d butchered them.

The smell seemed to suck all of the moisture out of his nose and mouth. People had burned down there. He shook his head and made the lightning bolt symbol of his god Perun across his chest with his finger. Warriors, he thought, had too much of the world. If it was ruled by merchants there wouldn’t be half the killing.

He looked at the city. It wasn’t big by his eastern standards but it was wonderfully placed on the Seine to stop the Viking raids getting any further upstream.

The dusk was cold and his breath clouded the air. He would have loved to have gone down to the city and sat by a fire with a mug of Frankish wine.. He found the Franks very relaxed and peaceful – at least when at ease in their own towns – and they were great lovers of silk. He’d always enjoyed Paris with its fascinating houses, square and pale, with arches for entrances and steep pitched roofs of checked tiles. No point letting that thought grow. The idea of warmth only made the cold seem deeper. There would be no shelter that night, beyond his tent. The hillside would be his bed, not an inn in the merchants’ quarters.

He watched as, on the bridge, the defenders beat down the flames. The bridges had been put there primarily to prevent ships coming up the river. They had done their job, along with the other defences the count had built. It was difficult to estimate the size of the Northmen’s army. If they controlled both banks of the river, he put it as massive, at least four thousand men. However, yellow banners spread themselves among the sprawl of meaner houses outside the city too. So perhaps the Danish force was smaller. Big enough, though, easily big enough to overrun any dwellings unprotected by the city walls.

Yet they hadn’t bothered to take them. Clearly, the northerners did not regard those buildings as important. They were moving through to richer and bigger towns along the river. Paris was just an obstacle to overcome and they weren’t going to lose good men fighting over a few huts. Leshii was impressed. Most commanders he knew had very little control over what their troops did once they got in sight of the enemy. This was a disciplined army, not a rabble.

Could he get down to one of those outlying houses, hire a bed there? No. The whole country would be in a terror and he’d be lucky not to be strung up by either side if they saw him.

There were Vikings on both sides of the river, he could tell. Their longships were moored on both banks and their black banners drooped in the still spring air for a fair slice of land about. Leshii gave a shiver when he thought of those banners. He had seen them enough times in the east – ravens and wolves. Such creatures prospered in the Norsemen’s wake. The city would fall, he thought, but it would take a while doing so.

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