Heroes of the Valley (23 page)

His gaze rested on the steepled roof of the hall, which his father would never leave again until – very soon now – his final journey to his cairn. For a moment a pain pierced him, but he shook it off, drawing sharp air into his lungs. He adjusted his pack then, feeling the muscles in his calves and buttocks jar and tingle as he resumed his climb. It felt good to be alive and active again after so long. With a quick movement he scanned the sky.

'Think it'll stay fine?' he said.

'Yes. Not scared, are you? Holding back?' Aud was braced against the slope of the hill above him, looking down. Her hair was tucked into her hood, and this, together with the tunic and leggings Halli had lent her, gave her an oddly masculine appearance. She was finding the climb easier than Halli; several times she had sat ostentatiously on a stone while he struggled to catch up.

'Not in the slightest.' He drew level with three ploughing strides. 'It's a bit steep, that's all.'

'Well, you
would
go this way. Why not there, where the track is?' She pointed east along the curve of the hill. 'That's much more gentle.'

'Also more exposed,' Halli said. 'Our way takes us out of sight of the House soon. Just in case someone looks up, not that they ever do.'

'Do you want me to take the pack for a bit?'

Halli pursed his lips indignantly. 'No, thank you.'

'Just because I'm a girl? Fine by me. You deserve to carry it, anyway. It's your fault it's so heavy.'

He shifted the pack upon his shoulders. 'We might need them.'

'No, we won't. It's daytime. Well, come on, then. Where's this broken wall of yours?'

'Not much further. We'll see it when we clear that brow.'

The summer before, when he had spent time in the high pasture, the grass had been threaded with blue and yellow flowers; bees had hummed amid the drifting grasses, and the proximity of the boundary had – by day at least – been easy to ignore. Now, however, as they cleared the brow and found the little plateau before them, still half choked with weathered, crispy snow, the sight was altogether drearier. The hut hunched like a beggar against the slope of the hill; wind fretted against its stones. Beyond lay a ragged, undulating line – the broken sheep wall running between little spars of rock projecting from the snow. Still further off, and higher, crimping the blank horizon beneath the grey-white sky, rose the line of cairns.

All of a sudden they were very close.

Both Halli and Aud's pace slowed a little, though the ground was almost flat. Neither one looked at the other.

The cairns were grey-backed, moss-flecked, their stones interlaced with snow. Most were widely spaced, but some leaned close towards each other as if in secret confidence.

Halli and Aud stood quite still. Wind blew against their faces. There was no other sound.

The cairns were right on the ridge crest and the moors could not be seen. To glimpse them, it would be necessary to walk right up among the cairns.

It was easy enough. Twenty steps or so, thirty maximum. All they had to do was walk.

They didn't move.

Halli said, 'So, nothing's stopping us, is it?'

'No.'

'So we should do it, then.'

'That's right.'

'We've been talking about it long enough, haven't we? Why wait another moment?'

'Exactly.'

'Exactly . . .' Halli blew out his cheeks, took a deep breath. 'Do you want a snack or something? We could sit in the hut, have a breather, think about how—'

'I think,' Aud said, cutting over him, 'we should run at it, not walk. Get it over with quickly. Do you know what I mean? Halli?'

Halli, who had been remembering the fate of his ewe the summer before, and also Katla's tale of the half-eaten boy, shook his mind clear. 'What? Oh, yes. Run. All right, we can do that. And we should carry this too.' He shrugged off his pack, reached inside and brought out a hedger's billhook, wooden-handled with a thick, curved blade. The metal was spotted with rust and broken at the tip, but the edge was sharp. He hefted it in his right hand. 'Just in case. You want one?'

'No! Like I've said a thousand times, nothing's going to happen. The Trows
do not exist
, Halli. Stories and lies. That's all.'

'I hope you're right.'

'Well, if you want me to go alone,' she said tartly, 'you can scurry home. I'm going on.'

'Who said I was going back? Let's get on with it.' In anger, he slung his pack over his shoulder and seized her hand. It was colder than his and (he thought) shaking a little. 'Together, then?'

'Together.'

Then they turned their heads to the sky and ran straight up towards the line of cairns.

U
NDER
S
VEIN'S RULE THE
outlaws, thieves, footpads and brigands that had once plagued the land were driven down-valley or left to kick their heels upon the gallows in the yard. But the menace of the Trows persisted and, despite Svein's training, most men were reluctant to fight them. Their claws were sharp enough to slice through flesh and bone and pierce the strongest armour; their teeth were like needles; their skin was hard enough to resist puncturing by all but the finest swords. At night, provided they kept to the soft earth, they had an eerie strength in their thin, thin arms; only when drawn onto rock or wood did this power grow brittle and a chance come for their victim to break free. While the sun was up they hid in holes or in the Trow king's hall high on the moors; at night they scurried forth, seeking human blood.

Snow flew high against their faces; grass threshed their shins. Faster, ever faster up the slope they went. Eight steps, nine . . . They leaped across the old sheep wall. Halli's pack clinked and jarred upon his back. Eighteen, nineteen . . . Up the final rise. He saw in his mind the fragments of the ewe, the scattered pieces of flesh among the stones . . . But it was too late to draw back; he could not have halted even had he wished to. Twenty-three steps, twenty-four, and before them now, the nearest cairns, low-slung, ancient, tilted, further apart than they seemed from below. They jerked and jumped in his vision as if they were alive.

Thirty-one steps, thirty-two . . .

Aud gripped him tight; he felt her nails against his skin.

On either side of the first cairn they went, and their linked hands passed over the top of it. Three steps more, stumbling on the bumpy ground, Halli's mouth open in a soundless shout, fingers holding Aud's as hard as he could, her nails digging into him.

They ran, ran, and then the second cairn was passed on Halli's side and they were through, over the ridge crest and down a little way, out onto the forbidden moors, still running.

'Halli—' A tug came on his arm. 'Halli, we can – we can stop now.'

He glanced at her, wild-eyed. Yes. Yes, it was done. He forced his body to ease, and slowed, halting at last in unison with Aud. A final step . . . Stillness. Their hands remained linked for a moment before dropping free.

It was silent. Their chests rose and fell. Aud was half doubled over, palms on thighs. Halli still had the billhook raised; little by little he lowered it to his side.

They stood in a broad sea of grass and melting snow. A great green-white expanse stretched out on either side. Scattered here and there were strange black outcrops, sheer crags of rock rising like buildings; otherwise the moor was lonely, desolate, gently undulating. Ahead it dropped away, before rising again to a little conical hill in the middle distance. Beyond the hill was a gulf, then – seemingly no nearer than he had always known them – the familiar grey-white mass of the mountains.

Halli looked back. The cairns seemed lower than they had done, a double line of dark grey shrugs on the lip of the slope, guarding a bluish vagueness – the valley that they had suddenly, and so easily, left behind them.

Aud, straightening, gave her little barking laugh. 'Done it!' she said, gulping with relief. 'Oh, Halli! What were we afraid of ?'

The grass by her feet erupted; something dark rose up. Aud screamed.

A small dun bird rose into the sky and, with a high, piping cry, looped away across the hill.

Halli had jumped back, billhook raised; now he was laughing. 'Corncrake,' he said. 'Just a corncrake. Don't worry, if she'd pecked your nose I'd have rescued you.'

'I notice you jumped
away
,' Aud said when she'd finished swearing.

'Sorry, sorry.' He was still laughing, conscious of a mild hysteria; he felt light-headed, thrown out of kilter by their sudden act. He knew he was grinning foolishly. 'I never thought,' he said, 'it would be so simple. I thought—'

'You thought a great big Trow would leap out from the ground and get you. Like this . . . !' Shoulders high, fingers bent like claws, a hideous expression on her face, she leaped at him, swiping left and right. He ducked away, grinning. 'It's nonsense, Halli, the whole thing. Where do we explore first, then? I vote for that little hill. We'd get a view of the moors there; it's not too far.'

But Halli had noticed something else. 'In a moment,' he said. 'Come and look at this.'

He set off, snow flicking from his boot caps, following the line of the boundary. Not far away rose a great mound. It was set amid a cluster of cairns, many tall and grandiose, yet all cowering in its shadow. It was sow-backed, humped and tapering east–west, and was positioned right upon the hill crest so that it could be seen far off across the valley. Where the sun had lingered, green grass showed under the snow.

Aud caught up with Halli as he stood beside the mound, his face suddenly still.

'This is . . . ?'

'Svein's. Of course. Look there, though. There's been a collapse.'

Not far from them, halfway along the southern flank of the mound, the soil had fallen away, exposing the bare stones of the cairn beneath. Some of these had shifted too, fallen from their old positions. The snow below was humped with scattered stones, and the rocks in the gash looked precariously balanced.

Halli's eyes were wide. 'Look at the
size
of the thing. It's almost like a hall.'

'Why are we whispering?' Aud said. She scuffed in the snow, located a stone and tossed it irreverently at the gash in the mound, where it chinked against a rock and lay still.

'Don't,' Halli said. He was thinking of all the old tales, of the legends of the hero, how he sat somewhere inside, sword ready, looking out across the moor.

'Come
on
. 'Aud was tugging at his arm. 'We're hunting for a path, remember?'

Their walk across the moors was slow, monotonous and silent under the lowering sky. The hill was further than they guessed, and the land between pockmarked with dips and depressions hidden in the snow. More than once Halli disappeared waist-deep and had to accept Aud's help to struggle free. They saw no sign of life and nothing of interest or consequence, save the jutting outcrops of black rock, some of which rose high as the roof on the hall below.

'No Trows here,' Aud said after a time. 'Unless they're very small.' She was still grinning.

Time passed; the low-lying hill got closer. 'There's a story about Svein,' Halli said. 'He went to a hill like that. Found a door. The way to the Trow king's halls.'

'I know it. Arne went too, on
our
side of the valley. Just a story, Halli.'

'You were happy enough to believe Katla's one,' he remarked, 'about Svein's being the first place settled when the people crossed the mountains.'

'It's just I'd never heard it before. It got me thinking.'

Halli shrugged. 'Well, we'll see what's over this bump.'

The hill, when they reached it, was higher than they expected, and by the time they gained its summit both were sweating and breathing hard. The top was studded with boulders and still thick with snow. Ice crusted in sheltered hollows.

'Go carefully,' Halli advised as they approached the summit. 'It'd be easy to slip here. Oh – look at the
view
.'

Ahead of them the landscape contorted with new harshness: blank folds of heather, a tangle of ice-bound streams winding among them, a stepped recession of cliffs and straggling grass, thin white waterfalls hung about with icicles, tumbled pyramids of broken rock beneath gullies scoured in the foothills of the mountains. It was cold, barren, an inhospitable waste, but its wildness and grandeur took Halli's breath away.

But Aud was scowling. 'So much for a
path
,' she said finally.

'Well, it's not going to come up and shake us by the hand, is it? We need to look about, that's all . . .' His voice trailed off. 'What's
that
, Aud?' he said, pointing.

She frowned. 'What? Not a path, I know that much.'

'Stop moaning and look. See down there, that little spur where the sun's shining right now? In the crook of it; is that a cave in those rocks, or just shadow?'

Aud squinted under her hand. 'Might be shadow . . .' she said slowly. 'Only one way to find out.'

The southern slopes of the hill lacked the snow and ice of the northern flank, but the ground grew increasingly waterlogged as they neared the cluster of rocks nestling near its base. Both of them had slipped frequently, and their leggings were sodden, the wool heavy, chafing their skin. Neither gave the discomfort a thought. They had come to a standstill, silent, gazing.

Ahead, amid a jumble of great split stones, a fissure opened, narrow at the top, wider at the base. It hung like a jagged teardrop in the rock. Cool, damp air radiated from it; it held the smell of darkness and old quiet. Halli felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir at the implications. He said, in a rather small voice: 'Aud . . .'

She was brisk, decisive. 'It's just a cave. Not the Trow king's front door.'

'Well, yes, you
say
that, but—'

'Oh, I'll prove it to you. I'll take a quick look.'

'No, Aud. I don't think—'

'If we had a light, it would be better, but I bet I can see in a little way . . . 'Now she was hopping over the litter of rocks, scrambling down to the entrance of the fissure.

Halli said, 'I really don't think this is a good idea. Take the billhook, at least.'

'I don't
want
the bloody billhook.' She came to a stop on flat. wet rock. 'Now then; I won't go more than a few feet in. If I see a Trow, I'm going to run, all right?' She chuckled briefly, stepping forward. 'It goes a long way in,' her voice came whispering back. 'Really we need a lantern.' He watched her slender form grow grey and indistinct, framed by cold rock. Now it was amorphous, scarcely visible; now it was gone. He heard her feet crunching on loose pebbles.

Halli waited. The top of the fissure, where it narrowed swiftly, was made of smooth stone, billowing out like frozen drapes. It reminded him a little of the curtains at the end of their hall back home, leading to the private rooms where his father lay. He saw then in his mind's eye the slow, unchanging rise and fall of his father's chest beneath the counterpane; felt again the sense of entrapment that had stifled him so long . . . It occurred to him that he could no longer hear Aud's footsteps.

'Aud?' he called. 'Aud?' In the silence his pulse hammered against his ear. 'Aud?' he called again; louder this time. 'Oh,
great Svein
. . .' Sweat broke out on his palms; he started forward, slipping down among the tumbled rocks.

Almost immediately he heard her, very faint, as if from far away. 'Halli . . .'

'Where are you?'

'Come here . . .'

There was fear in the voice. He cursed again, fumbling in his pack for the billhook as he dropped down onto the flat stones of the cave-mouth and, without hesitation, stepped out of the light. For several heartbeats he was entirely blind, shuffling forward, hands still rummaging in the pack . . .

'Ah!' He had collided with something; he heard Aud's squeal, felt the rasp of her fleece against his frantic hand. 'You
idiot
, Aud,' he snarled. 'What's the
matter
with you? If I'd had the hook out I might have—'

'
Look
, Halli. Look.'

At first he saw nothing; his eyes struggled with the dimness. But little by little faint shapes swam into view: Aud's face, ghost-like, floating; a tilted slab of rock, hanging hazily beyond her, reflecting the meagre light that drifted in from the opening behind them. And, at their feet: a scattering of pale things that gleamed a dull soft white. Some were long and thin, others slighter, curved. Still others were little more than fragments, bright shards scattered on the dark dirt floor.

'Aud . . .' Halli whispered. 'I think they're—'

'I know what they
are
, for Arne's sake!' Her voice was taut as a drum.

'Good, good, then you'll know we need to get
out
. . . 'He located her arm, pulled savagely, heading back towards the light. She struggled, but without conviction. Moments later they spilled into brightness, blinking, breathless, out under the grey sky and the arching mountains.

Aud's hood had fallen back, and her hair had tumbled loosely over one side of her face. She pawed angrily at Halli's clutching hand. 'Let
go
.'

'Gladly.'

'
Why
are you panicking? It isn't necessarily what you think.'

'No? What alternatives can you suggest? And if you talk about wolves and eagles again, I'm going to kick you.'

She stamped a foot. 'Kick away. It
might
be wolves, or bears—'

'They weren't animal bones, Aud! I saw thigh bones for sure, and ribs, and—'

'Even so, wolves might be to blame. Or . . . or . . . they might have been outlaws or criminals who went beyond the cairns. Yes! Long ago . . . They're not new bones, Halli. They might have been outcasts, who went there for shelter – and – and died of cold.'

'Oh, so you don't think we might possibly have found the Trow king's hall?' he cried. 'You know, the one in the stories you don't believe? The one all hung about with men's bones?'