The Hills of Home (The Song of the Ash Tree Book 2) (21 page)

Gudrik nodded, his eyes brimming with tears of frustration, and stepped back. With a heavy heart and a nod at Isolf, Raef turned his horse, looking over his shoulder for one last glance into the fog in the hopes that a shadow might step forward in the shape of Vakre or Siv. Raef put his heels to his horse and they were away, the fog turning to water on his cheeks as they raced to catch up to his men and Eira, who had reappeared in Raef’s chamber the night before, eager to join him as he traveled north.

His chosen path took them to the sea, and when dawn broke they had reached the coast, which they would follow until the next fjord split the land. The fog burned off quickly once light spilled over the eastern horizon, and they were left with gentle morning waves that seemed at odds with the brisk, winter breeze that came off the sea. The men rode with hoods pulled up or fur collars tucked tight around their necks and they kept a quick pace.

By mid-day, they had seen nothing but gulls wheeling overhead and they turned inland to trace the edge of the narrow, short fjord on the gentle southern shore. When they reached the apex of the fjord, they turned north again and began to climb into higher hills, passing a farm here and there, the stone walls crisscrossing the slopes but enclosing nothing except snow. Smoke could be seen rising from each farmhouse, but Raef did not disturb his people and they made camp in a small, curved valley that night.

The farm of Rudrak Red-beard was another day’s ride north, if they held to their course, and it seemed likely that Red-beard would stick to the land he knew best until he was ready to strike. But as Raef warmed his hands over a fire that night under the stars, his thoughts were on lands to the west, rugged lands that hugged the sea and were the home of Tulkis Greyshield. To reach them would add another day of riding and Raef did not think he could spare so much time, not when Greyshield had made no threat. And yet he did not like the idea of passing up an opportunity to determine Greyshield’s mind. Raef wrestled with his thoughts that night, the stars above offering nothing but their cold light, sleeping only a little. He half-hoped Eira would ask what troubled him so that he might speak his thoughts out loud, but she seemed tucked into her own mind, as he had so often seen her. When dawn came and the camp began to stir, he had made his decision.

Five men turned west when they broke camp, charged with being Raef’s eyes and ears. “Under no circumstances are you to engage Greyshield,” Raef told them. “You are shadows, nothing more. I want to know who he meets with, if has gathered men to him and, if so, how many. When you have done this, return to the Vestrhall. I will look for you there.” Raef watched them ride away, five warriors he trusted not to be reckless, who were less bloodthirsty than others, and yet still he wondered if it was a mistake not to send more.

The day was dark, the dim, grey light of dawn staying constant even as the faint shadows shifted under the passing of the distant, shielded sun. Raef kept them to higher ground as much as possible so they might, as an eagle, catch early sight of their prey, but the land they crossed, one of the least fertile and least populated parts of Vannheim, remained empty. As they drew closer to Red-beard’s home, they fanned out, splitting into three groups to cover more territory and yet all three parties converged on Red-beard’s farmhouse with nothing to report.

The four buildings that made up Red-beard’s farm were nestled against a stand of trees and built into the side of a rocky hill. Raef observed them from a vantage point across the valley while his men stayed out of sight. The farm was quiet and no smoke drifted from the roof of Red-beard’s house. Raef watched until the sun dipped below the hills, then approached on foot with Eira and a handful of men as darkness gathered in the trees.

A closer inspection showed the farm was deserted, bereft of both people and livestock. The hearth was cold, the cupboards devoid of food, the house stripped of anything of value.

“Lord,” a voice called to Raef, “over here.”

Raef followed the voice around the side of the southern-most of the three buildings and wrinkled his nose against a foul odor that hung in the air.

The horse had been dead two, maybe three, days, it was hard to tell for the cold had delayed the rotting, but it was rotting nonetheless. The carcass lay in the snow, its neck black with blood where the axe had severed the head from the body. A crow had been at work there, tearing flesh from the wound in bits and pieces, and it took to the air now, cawing, as Raef and his men disturbed it.

But it was the head that drew the eyes of the warriors and caused many to reach for the Thor hammers they carried around their necks. Even Eira was not immune, her face paler than usual and her mouth tight.

The head was impaled on a spear, mouth gaping, teeth bared in a hideous, deathly grin, tongue flopping to one side. The eyes had been pecked out and the cheeks torn by savaging beaks. It was a grisly scene, but it alone was not what had made Raef’s men stop in their tracks, unwilling to come closer.

The horse head faced south and just a little west and Raef knew this was not a matter of chance. If he flew, like a raven, in the direction the empty eye sockets were staring, he would come directly to his own hall.

“The nidstang,” muttered the warrior closest to Raef.

Raef stepped close to the spear and its gruesome prize. The words were roughly carved into the spear shaft, but Raef read them aloud. “I curse the line of Skallagrim, the ancient dead, the unborn children. Darkness and death shall haunt them, Thor shall punish them, Odin shall keep them from Valhalla.”

The crow, perched now on the roof of the barn, squawked, its call ringing in the air. The men were still, their faces betraying the fear the nidstang curse had unleashed in their bellies.

Raef drew his axe and hacked the spear in two. The horse head tumbled to the ground and came to rest by his feet while the spear splintered and scattered the words of the curse in the snow. The men drew back, unwilling to touch any part of the nidstang, but fury and Rudrak’s barefaced threat had made Raef bold. Using his axe to hold the skull down, Raef wrenched the point of the spear from the horse’s neck and held it out to the men. “Piss on these words. I will shove Rudrak Red-beard’s curse up his ass.” He removed his axe from the rotting wreckage and wiped it in the snow. “Burn it all.”

In the growing dark, Raef’s men went to work, distributing the supply of firewood Red-beard had left behind, and soon the farm was in flames. Raef himself held the torch to the horse carcass and the leering head, and the stink of rotting, burning flesh filled the night. The men, even those who had not seen the nidstang for themselves, were nervous, the curse having worked under their skin. Raef admitted to no one his own discomfort at seeing the dead, empty sockets staring toward his home, their meaning and intent clearer than Mimir’s well. The nidstang was an ancient curse, well-known but seldom used, and Raef could not help but wonder if some hand other than Rudrak’s had carved the words, some hand that had the means to discover that it was not Raef’s fate to go to Valhalla. The gesture reeked of the priests of Odin and yet Raef did not think even Fylkir, for all his discontent, would have reason to invoke such a malevolent threat. He would have to seek out Josurr upon his return to the Vestrhall and learn what he could.

The blaze was high and bright, leaping to the sky, sparks flying. Raef watched it burn, a beacon in the night that sent a clear signal if Rudrak or any who followed him were watching, but the satisfaction of destroying Red-beard’s home only fueled his anger and left him wanting more.

“What now, lord?” The question came from a warrior called Elthane. He rested on his spear, his eyes moving from the fire to Raef’s face, and other men turned from the fire, one by one, until all eyes were on him.

“I do not need a curse to bring down Rudrak Red-beard. He has shown his hand, he has shown the depth of his treachery. He has broken the deepest oaths a man can make and we will tear him apart.” The men did not cheer, but their faces were grim and hard and Raef knew they felt as he did.

Wolves sang to the stars that night. Raef and his men camped in sight of Red-beard’s burning farm, and the pack was close, their voices calling and answering from all directions.

“They are hungry,” Eira said as she and Raef shared dried meat and cold, hard bread. They had lit no fires, wanting to keep all attention on the blaze on the next hill for Raef was certain Red-beard was watching.

Raef kissed Eira’s forehead. “So am I.” He tucked her against his chest, for warmth, if nothing else.

“When this is done, who will you march on first, the Hammerling or Fengar?”

“Neither. I will seek Hauk of Ruderk and finish what he started. If he is at the Hammerling’s side, then so be it.”

“Would it not be better to ally with the Hammerling once more and finish off Fengar together?”

“I have been named king and he will hear of it. Even if I dispute that, Brandulf Hammerling will never accept me back into the fold. He will regard it as a deep betrayal. I will be an enemy, just as Fengar is, perhaps even more so for having once fought at his side.”

They were quiet for a moment until Eira spoke again. “My shieldmaidens fight with the Hammerling,” she said.

“You know this? How?”

She did not answer right away. “When we rode west after the battle of the burning lake, I saw them. They told me they intended to swear oaths to him.” She paused and Raef sensed there was more. “They said if I did not do the same and ride with them once more, they would choose a new leader.”

“I am sorry.”

“The choice was mine,” she said, shrugging against him as though the loss of her warriors meant little. Raef did not believe it.

“When we go to war,” he said, “you will command many spears and you will lead them to glorious victory.” He felt her smile and kissed her hair, glad to be able to give her something that would please her and make up for what she had lost. But when Raef slept that night he dreamed a dream that had visited him more than once in Hrodvelgr’s prison and again, a sleepless vision, in the labyrinth. In it, he watched Eira lead men to battle. Her blade flashed in the sun, the spears and axes around her were a bristling wave of death, and the battle-joy was etched on her face. And yet she stumbled, as she always did, and death came swiftly for her. This night, it was a spear to the throat and Raef watched her squirm, clawing at the unseen enemy whose spear had dealt the blow, but then falling limp. Some nights it was a spear, others an axe, or a sword, or even arrows, and but always the dream ended with Eira staring at Raef as her life bled out of her, her grey eyes calling for help. Raef woke with a jerk, his breath coming hard and fast, sending vapor into the night. Eira was still curled in sleep and he found himself touching her dark hair as though to reassure himself of her presence. Raef took a deep breath and then a long drink of mead from his skin. The sharp edges of the dream began to dull and Raef drifted back into sleep, hoping the dream would not return with the face of Siv or Vakre, as it so often did.

The morning brought fresh snow and it fell fast and thick. Raef relieved his bladder at the edge of camp and had turned back to ready his horse when the arrow flew past his shoulder. Ducking, Raef ran, aware that more arrows had been loosed.

“Shields!” he called. “Shields!”

The camp shuddered to life and Raef snatched his own shield from the ground just in time to take the next arrow in the wood instead of the neck. The warriors shuffled together, staying low behind their shields, until the wall had been formed. From there, Raef peered out, but there was little to see except snow. The arrows still fell, but they were harmless and soon ceased.

For a moment there was silence but for the breathing of the men around him and his own heartbeat, and then the war cry pierced the air and other voices rose up around it. The charge had begun.

The snowfall was so dense that the shapes of their enemy could not be seen until they were less than ten paces away, but Raef’s men reacted quickly, moving their shields apart just enough to let the spears from the rear slide through, breaking the charge and impaling several warriors.

With a tremendous jolt, the two lines clashed, shield on shield, and the short swords and axes went to work, hacking, stabbing, biting through any crack in the wall. Raef, his legs braced, the man behind him pushing forward to keep the wall in place, found an opening and sliced at the knees of the warrior opposite him. The man went down and was replaced by another screaming wordlessly, but his voice died in his throat as Raef, propelled forward by the wall around him, hacked down his shield and sliced into his chest. The man tumbled beneath the momentum of Raef’s wall and Raef finished him with a swift chop to the neck. Still his wall pressed forward, pushing the attackers back, and Raef, though he could see nothing but the heaving bodies around him, knew he had the advantage of greater numbers.

The attackers broke, their wall crumbling and Raef’s men went on the offensive, breaking their own wall just enough to allow the freedom of movement they needed to secure victory.

Tucking his axe into his belt, Raef sidestepped a spear aimed at his chest, then switched his shield to his right arm and drew his new sword. It seemed to hum in his hand, ready to spill its first blood. Raef chopped off the point of the spear and then used his shield to throw his opponent off balance before plunging the blade into the man’s belly. He had not fallen to the snow before Raef had moved onto the next, a yellow-bearded, bald-headed man with an axe. Raef knew that face. This was Gunbjorn, one of his father’s warriors, stout and strong but with a laugh that could bring a smile to any face. All this Raef thought of as he rammed into Gunbjorn. They grappled for a moment, shield on shield, and then Raef dropped to his knees. Gunbjorn fell forward and Raef upended him with his shield. The warrior sprawled in the snow and Raef, without hesitation, stabbed Gunbjorn in the back.

Glancing around, Raef saw that his men were in control, that the fight was all but won. And then he saw Rudrak Red-beard wielding his massive axe, dealing death on all sides. Three bodies lay ruined at his feet and he held four more warriors at bay, spinning, cursing, raging like a corned bear.