Lord of Slaughter

53

He lay in the mouth of a great cave in a hillside. Below him was a starlit plain. In the far distance a gigantic city, its walls even greater than those of Constantinople, burned like a night sun. The fierce fire reddened the clouds above it, as if the sky was a beast with a wound in its side. Closer to him, Bollason and some Vikings fought a huge red-bearded man who swung a terrible war hammer. Bollason was fast for a big man, and danced, ducked and thrust as the hammer thundered above his head, around him, past him, never quite touching him. Elsewhere a twisted figure, the one-eyed fellow he’d seen in the well, his body stained and tattooed, his one eye mad with battle lust, a spear in his hand, thrust at enemies three times his size who attempted to pluck him from his horse. The horse! It had eight legs and kicked and bit at the giants as its rider thrust with his spear. One of the giants was engulfed by flame but fought as though it was no bother to him at all, another bore a terrible sword and cut at the rider but could not hit him. Loys realised the rider and the man with the hammer were not simply trying to defeat their opponents, they were trying to get at him.

He became aware of a deep animal stink behind him.

Just inside the cave was what he first took for a pile of rubble, but his eyes only took a moment to adjust. It was not a heap of stones but an animal, an immense wolf as long as five men from nose to tail and so bulky its side rose to twice Loys’ height. The wolf was tied with fine threads almost like spider silk, which cut and marked its flesh. It strained against the threads as if in a delirium, its green eyes vacant, its tongue lolling. A stream of drool dripped from its mouth, which was propped open by a good thick sword. It was bound to a huge black rock that reached up into the cave, a terrible thing. The wolf had rubbed a big sore into its side and its blood glittered in the light of the burning city.

Beside Loys was the woman with the burned face, the one he’d seen drowned at the well.

‘The threads,’ she said. ‘Burn through the threads.’

‘How are you here?’

‘I found a way to die. Now burn through the threads.’

‘Why?’

‘So the story will end. So the cycle of agony will end. Your lover will be free of what has hunted her all those years. Free of the past — of me, for that is what I am.’

‘Those men down the hill will kill me.’

‘They are gods and they will fight there forever unless you release the wolf or step out of the cave.’

‘Then I might stay here for ever.’

‘Then your lover will die.’

‘My lover is dead.’

‘I think so. She will die again and again, as horribly, if you do not act.’

Loys sensed the woman spoke the truth. It didn’t matter. Beatrice was dead. He wanted only one thing.

‘If I die here, properly, do I go to darkness?’

‘Yes.’

‘If I fail to act?’

‘You stay here for ever.’

‘I could welcome the gods or walk to them, for them to slaughter me.’

‘Fail to release the wolf and the gods will welcome you. They will build you a palace in Asgard, where you can live out eternity without her.’

He was overwhelmed by the firelit dark, the smell of the wolf, the beast’s low keening and rasping, the feel of the stones beneath his feet. He sat down.

‘Burn the threads. Remove the sword. Free the wolf. It is your destiny.’

His little lamp still burned after his terrible journey through the rainbow light.

‘Is it my death?’

‘Yes. Be quick. The rock to which it is tied banishes all magic but in the other eight worlds his mind roams free. The wolf will not know you are coming to help him and could still kill you at the well.’

‘And then?’

‘Your lover lives again, to die again in agony.’

Loys walked to where the wolf heaved and panted. Its eyes moved as it watched him approach. As he advanced, the wolf drew back its lips in a growl and Loys shook in fear. The beast’s voice groaned like the protests of a ship’s timbers in a storm, its eyes were full of ancient hatred.

He thought of Beatrice. No particular memory came to him, just her smiling at him. Could he live with that memory in this gloomy place for ever? In a palace, on a plain? Anywhere? No. He couldn’t.

He considered climbing around the back of the wolf, to burn the rope where it was secured to the rock, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to carry the lamp. He couldn’t hurt the wolf with the flame, he knew, not properly. He went between its bound back legs to its belly. So many threads crossed its body he didn’t know where to begin. He just held the flame to the nearest thread and, of necessity, to the animal’s skin.

As the wolf’s flesh burned the animal snarled and spluttered, its great head straining at Loys. The threads were burning too, blackening and snapping one after the other. He watched the flame catch and grow bigger as it fed off the threads. The animal howled and growled. More threads blackened, thinned and snapped, and suddenly the great wolf could move.

The wolf lunged at him. Its head jerked back, still held by some of the remaining threads and it howled with a note that Loys thought might plunge him into madness as it bit down on the sword that kept its jaws apart. How soon would it be, he wondered, before the animal broke completely free, got rid of its sword and tore him to pieces.

He glanced at the woman next to him.

‘Hurry,’ she said.

‘What about you?’

‘I am dead. I have no lamp to burn.’

‘Use this one.’

‘I will not touch it.’

Loys reapplied the flame and the animal strained against the threads as the little lamp burned its skin. More threads burned and parted. More. The animal’s head swung round, swiping the air next to Loys’ head. Its breath was like a blow, and Loys reeled back. The wolf was still not loose but it tore at its remaining bonds with its claws.

Loys became aware of someone else in the cave. In the shadows at the corner of his eye crouched an old man. He was thin but terribly muscular, his skin stained black like aged leather, a rope around his throat, one eye staring at Loys, the other just a slit. In one hand he bore a long spear fashioned from a piece of burned wood.

Loys knew him. He could not mistake him. He was the man on the eight-legged horse. But down the hill, the same man still fought the giants. He was a god, in many places at the same time, thought Loys.

‘King Death,’ he said.

The wolf’s snarls grated throughout the cave, its teeth tore at its bonds. Still it could not break free, the threads were so tight it would have to bite away its own flesh to be rid of them.

‘He is not here,’ said the woman with the scar to Loys. ‘He is fighting the giants. That rock is called Scream and it denies all magic, even his. This is the nearest he can send his mind. Do not approach him and he cannot hurt you.’

The man cleared a few rocks away and scratched something in the sand. A rune like an angular r. To Loys it seemed to sparkle with water, to shift like the rain on a hillside.

‘What does it mean?’

‘You don’t know, so that means you are safe. Stay where you are.’

‘And you?’

The woman stood almost next to the rune, gazing down into it.

‘I…’

Her body twitched and shook and she stepped forward to stand beside the god. Her head lolled to the side, her shoulders sagged and her feet went onto tiptoe as if she was being hanged with an invisible rope. The old man stood and extended his spear at arm’s length, prodding the woman in the back.

She spoke, her voice strangled: ‘There is still time. The giants will die and we will come here. There is still time. No! No! The god speaks through me; it is not me.’ The woman had her hands at her neck, as if to pull something away.

‘Time for what?’ asked Loys.

‘For life and for death.’ Her voice had gone down an octave. It was now that of an old man — deep, full of spite.

‘What life, what death?’

‘Her life, your death.’

‘My wife is gone.’

‘I am King Death. She is not gone unless I will it.’

‘Then do not will it.’

‘You have done me great harm.’

‘I sought only death.’

‘Do not pay to bring her from the well!’ It was the woman’s usual voice again, terribly hoarse and strangled.

‘What is the price?’

‘Die on the teeth of the wolf before he is free,’ the god spoke through her again. ‘He last ate when the world was young. We will retie him while he feeds on you.’ The woman twisted and fought with whatever encircled her neck.

‘Why not throw the woman to the wolf?’ said Loys. ‘She is a sorceress and has brought this thing on herself.’

‘She is part divine.’ The woman spoke, but Loys knew it was the twisted figure of the spear god who commanded her voice. ‘It is dishonourable to kill her in this place.’

‘Not me?’

‘You are a man and an intruder here. Yours is the necessary sacrifice. Yours is the death I require to work my magic.’

‘If I don’t do it then you will die.’

‘If that is what honour requires. We could have killed the wolf instead of binding him, but honour said no. We raised him and cannot stain the fields of Asgard with the blood of a guest. Better to die than be dishonoured. You come here bearing fire, as the prophecy foresaw; you have tried to free the wolf, as the prophecy foresaw. You are my enemy and I demand your death.’

The wolf lunged towards Loys but its jaws snapped short of him. It was still held by the threads binding its back legs.

‘I want more,’ said Loys.

‘What more?’

‘She must not be alone. Make sure she gets back to her father. All I believed in has been shaken today, and it grieves me to bargain with demons, but give her a protector; let her live and prosper.’

‘I will.’

‘Do you swear it?’

‘It is my oath.’

‘No! No!’ the woman screamed. Now she was flung to the ground by the invisible force. She crawled towards the snarling wolf, out of the reach of the god’s magic.

The wolf’s paws tore at its back legs in a frenzy, its voice like the scrape of a ship grounding. Loys realised the beast could not claw the final strands free. It snapped and twisted, writhing in frustration and agony.

‘Your oath?’

The god said nothing, just held out his hand. Loys was sure he was going to die so feared nothing. He stepped towards the god and put his hand in his.

It was as if he had taken a blow to the stomach, the feeling someone dozing in front of a fire gets as they suddenly snap back into consciousness from the edge of sleep. Images went flashing through Loys’ mind — a vast sky of stars, a high tree, a man hung upon it pierced by a spear, his eye a raw wound. Loys felt a weight to the air — air more like water, as if he had to struggle through it to move. Cold water, dark water, black water. He saw what the god had suffered, his thirst, his agony, but he saw more. He saw heroes who carried the god’s symbols, the raven or the triple knot, cast down and stabbed, he saw them crying out to the god for help, but women or ravens, or something between ravens and women, swept down on them, carrying them away. He knew they were the god’s servants and he knew the god’s names. Odin and Bolverkr — the evil-worker. Ginnarr — the deceiver. Grimnir — the masked one. Skollvaldr — ruler of treachery. He could not trust the oath.

He let go of the god’s hand. Back down the slope the weird horseman still battled the giants, but two huge bodies lay dead and the others were giving ground.

He took his little lamp and walked towards the wolf, where the god could not send his mind.