Troll Blood (34 page)

“Why did you let him go?” Halfdan yelled at Tjorvi.

“Why didn’t you get rid of his sword?” Tjorvi shouted. Peer ignored them. He knew better than to take his eyes off Harald.

He spoke loudly. “This is what I came to say. I’ve been living with the Skraelings. They sheltered me, took me in. But you killed two of them, Harald. Kiunik and Tia’m, their names were. Their people have found out, and they want your blood.”

He raised his voice over the growing murmur. “They’ll not hurt the girls. I came to take the girls away. The rest of you could try to surrender. There’s a war band out there, fifty of them, with bows and spears and axes. If you surrender, I’ll do what I can to help you. But they’re angry. They’ve got a right
to be: Their kinsmen were murdered. …”

Harald’s voice lifted over the hubbub. “Traitor! You led them here!”

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Peer laughed out loud. “Led them? I couldn’t have found my way here without them. They know these woods, Harald—we’re the strangers.”

“Skraelings?” Harald threw his head back.
“Hooo-ooo!
Skraelings! Hear him, lads? Are we a match for them? Are we men?”

“Peer,” Tjorvi bellowed, “if we surrender, will they harm us?”

“I don’t know” He had to be honest. “They don’t like cowards. But there’s so many—if you fight you’ll die anyway….”

“They don’t like cowards?” Tjorvi said bleakly. “Who does? All right, if we’ve got to die, let’s take a few of them with us.”

“No!” Peer yelled. But the others were nodding. “Aye!” “Die like men!” “Like heroes!”

“I don’t want to die,” sobbed Floki.

Harald kicked him. “Get up, Floki, you son of a pig. Find yourself a weapon and act like a Norseman.” He faced the men, sword uplifted. “Who’s your leader?”

There was a confused murmur:

“Harald?”

“No, no …”

“Yes—we really do need Harald now. …”

“Who’s with me?” Harald shouted.

“We are! We all are!”

“I DON’T BELIEVE IT!”
screamed Hilde. She jumped forward, fists clenched. “Harald just
killed
Magnus, and now you want him to lead you?”

“Who else can do it?” Halfdan snarled. “We need a leader—a war leader. We can sort out the stuff about Magnus later.”

“There won’t be any later!” Peer shouted.

“Not for you,” said Harald, and he sprang at Peer over the fire.

For an endless second Peer saw him coming, his golden hair floating out, underlit by the firelight, his mouth opening in a war cry, his eyes reflecting the flames.

“Run!” Astrid screamed.

Peer ducked under Harald’s sword stroke and bolted for the door.
Here I go again
, he had time to think ironically.
Would it always, always come down to this—he’s got a sword, and I haven’t
?

The cold wind bit his face. Loose snow smoked along the ground. The thin moon was touching the crest of the hill. He ran for the trees and the safety of Sinumkw’s men. It was farther than it looked. … His foot plunged into a hole under the snow and he pitched forward, hitting the rock-hard ground with an impact that drove the breath from his lungs.

He writhed onto his back, pulling up his knees, trying to suck in air while tingling stars popped and blistered in front of his eyes. A foot crunched into the snow beside his head. It was bare. Harald had run out into the snow after him without
boots. Unable to breathe or speak, Peer twisted to see a sword point inches from his nose. It looked enormous, dwindling upward to Harald’s fist, and finally his far-off face, dark against the sky.

“If you’ve never killed anyone, Barelegs …”

Peer wheezed. A thread of air wound into his lungs. Nothing like enough. He doubled up. If he could get one breath, one, before Harald killed him.

“…you won’t know …” Harald paused. “You won’t know how good life truly tastes. You can’t know at all”

The sword point pulled back from his face. “And now for a good death,” whispered Harald. He sounded happy. Peer set his teeth and waited for the blow.

With a strange rushing whirr and a thump, something struck Harald. He staggered, clawing at his right shoulder, where a slim shaft stuck. He ripped it loose. Blood ran down his arm and dripped dark into the snow. Harald threw back his head, opened his mouth, and howled at the stars.
“Ahooooooooooooooh!”

It echoed into the sky, a cry to melt your bones—wild, fluid, splitting into a double shriek that rose and fell and trailed off into unending loneliness. Peer cringed into the snow, while all the hairs on his neck rose. Still the expected blow did not fall. Harald stepped away.

Icy air rushed into Peer’s lungs. He pushed himself up, coughing.

Another arrow hissed past his shoulder, burying itself in
the snow. A string of dark figures detached from the edge of the woods and rushed out over the white flats, whooping. In the pale snow light, Peer couldn’t see faces, but he knew that Kwimu and Sinumkw were leading them. Harald was racing barefoot to meet them, his pale hair streaming, throwing his sword into the air and catching it. He howled again, and the hillside echoed:
“Ahoooooooooooooh! Hoo, hoo, hoo!”

“Come on, lads!” Tjorvi, Arnë, and Halfdan pounded out of the house, waving axes.

“Arnë! Halfdan!” Peer shouted in despair.

“Peer!” With a rush of skirts, Hilde threw herself down in the snow alongside him, panting and actually laughing.

He turned on her in fury. “What are you doing out here? You could get killed. They’re shooting!”

“I don’t care.” Her eyes were bright. “I’m not losing you twice.”

He flung an arm over her shoulders and kissed her. She kissed him back. Her mouth was cold, then warm. The wind hurled stinging snow into their faces, as fine as salt. They clung to each other.

Harald began a series of sharp yipping barks, climbing to another fearsome howl. Peer half rose. Hilde dragged him down. “Stay with me!”

They heard the echo from the woods. How could the hillside twist and wring the sound like that, to fling it back clearer, longer, louder?

That’s not an echo. It’s an answer
.

He jumped up, heedless of flying arrows. “Sinumkw!” he yelled. “Kwimu! Up there on the ridge! Look behind you!”

It didn’t matter that he was using his own language. His urgent voice and pointing arm did it all. Black on the crest of the ridge, something impossibly tall stalked long-legged against the moon glow, a flickering shape behind the trees, now visible, now gone. It raised long, angular arms above its head and screamed, a scream to shred your nerves and tear off the top of your head and rip open your brain. Then it jumped below the skyline. The trees shook as it crashed downhill.

The war party turned, scattering and re-forming to face the woods.

“Tjorvi! Arnë!” Peer bellowed between his hands. “Look out!”

The Norsemen flung themselves down. From the edge of the woods the
jenu
burst in an avalanche of snow, frozen clods, and broken branches. It stopped at the base of the slope, one arm hooked around the top of a bending pine, and leaned out slowly, swiveling this way and that as if searching for someone.

“What
is
it?” Hilde hissed hysterically.

“Get back to the house—” Peer stopped. It was all open ground between here and the house. If Hilde ran, the
jenu
could catch her in a few strides, and he was sure it would chase anything that ran away.

“Keep down.” He grabbed her arm and towed her toward the war band.

She struggled. “They’re Skraelings!”

“No, they’re friends.” It sounded stupid: Friends didn’t attack with arrows. He added firmly, “Safety in numbers.”

He hoped it was true. The war party crouched in a ragged arc, bows and spears at the ready. Bending low, Peer and Hilde scurried into the band of warriors. Friends … it was true. Muin and Kopit and Ki’kwaju—he knew all their names. Kwimu, kneeling with bent bow, flicked Peer a single glance of welcome and turned back to concentrate on the foe.

They were nearer now. Peer could see more. The thing had the horrifying proportions of a stick man: long exaggerated arms and legs, with swollen joints and splayed fingers. The naked, grayish body reflected the snow light as it stared about with huge, rolling, almost fishlike eyes. It opened a lipless gash of a mouth, lined with thin, pointed teeth, and howled like the north wind.

“Owooooooooooohhh!”

Harald Silkenhair screamed in answer.

Hilde gripped Peer’s arm. “It’ll see him! Is he mad?”

Harald had been standing in the snow, transfixed. Now he was running toward the
jenu
, his pale hair floating. With a yell of defiance he whirled his sword, and threw himself at the monster.

Peer saw the sword carve a dark slash in the creature’s thin thigh. The
jenu
bellowed. Its raking fingers came down and plucked Harald from the ground. Struggling, Harald swung the sword again, stabbing at the creature’s face. The
jenu
tore
the sword from his hand and threw it away. It brought up a bony knee and snapped him over it like a stick of firewood.

Hilde clapped her hands over her face. Sinumkw shouted. The warriors loosed their bows. Arrows rushed through the air, and some of them stuck in the
jenu’s
side. It brushed at them clumsily, as if they were thorns.

Tjorvi crawled up through the snow, worming along on his elbow. He reached Peer and gripped his arm with steely fingers. “What can we do?”

Peer shook his head.

The
jenu
began to cough. It threw Harald into the snow, where he lay like a broken doll. It retched and jerked, and finally gobbed something out into its hands, something pale and slippery, the size of a newborn baby shaped out of ice. The
jenu
stared for a moment. Then it pushed its heart back into its mouth and gulped. It grabbed Harald jealously and crouched down. Peer heard growling, a breathy, throaty sound.
It’s going to eat him
, he thought, sickened.
And when it’s finished, it will start on us
.

There was a shrill yell from the direction of the houses. Splashes of bright fire like living gold came jerking and weaving over the gray frozen ground. Two figures bounded through the snow, waving fiery torches. Loki raced ahead of them, barking.

The
jenu
sprang upright, snarling, clutching Harald’s broken body to its chest.

Kwimu yelled. Tjorvi and Arnë shouted. Ottar screamed.

Floki came panting up, waving a blazing torch in each hand. Fire dripped to the ground, sizzling in the snow. He held one of the torches out, and Kwimu snatched it. Astrid ran up, her wild hair the same color as the flames. She flinched as Sinumkw leaped at her, seized both her torches, and ran at the
jenu
, whooping wildly. His warriors streamed after him. Peer grabbed Hilde’s hand. Madly, together, everyone charged with Sinumkw, yelling, hurling spears and waving torches.

For a second, Peer thought the
jenu
would fight. It bent over them, hissing, and he choked on its powerful, musky stench, sweet and stale. Its eyes gleamed. Cradled in its sinewy arms, Harald lolled lifeless, his long hair trailing.

Then, like a dog protecting its bone, the
jenu
turned. They saw the nicked ridge of its spine, its thin buttocks and long bony legs scissoring away in ground-swallowing strides, heading for the river. It faded rapidly in the gray light. It leaped across the river and disappeared into the far woods. They heard one last distant shriek of rage and loneliness. And it was gone.

Ottar ran up, dragging something heavy along with him. “It’s his sword,” he sobbed. “I’ve got Harald’s sword.” He stared over the dim marshes toward the river and the black, watching woods, and let the sword drop into the snow. He looked up at Peer and tears ran down his cheeks. “I hated him. I hated him. But he was brave, wasn’t he, Peer? He
was
brave.”

“Yes, he was brave,” said Peer slowly. “But I’m afraid that’s all he was.”

CHAPTER 24
Peace Pipe

H
ow did you guess the thing could be driven away by fire?” asked Tjorvi in admiration.