Snow-Walker

Eight

The company came to its feet.

It was late that night, very late, when the uproar began.

Jessa was awake in an instant, hearing the doors crash open below, the shout and murmur of raised voices in the hall. She snatched the knife from her belt, tugged on coat and boots, and ran outside, straight into Skapti.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. Where’s Wulfgar?”

“Here.” He was behind them, looking sleepy, some of his men clustered about him. “What’s going on?” he snapped. “Are we being attacked?”

A thrall raced up the stairs. “There are men below, in the hall. Strangers. They’ve come a long way—they want to speak to you.”

“At this hour!” Wulfgar gave Skapti his sword and ran a hand through his tangle of hair. “Won’t it keep?”

“They insist. They seem … terrified.”

For a moment Wulfgar stood still. Then he put the man aside gently and walked down the stairs, his bodyguard about him. Jessa followed, curious.

The hall was almost in darkness. A few torches still guttered at one end, and the only fire that had not gone out was being banked up with dry wood so that it spit and crackled and gave little light. Argument hummed in the great stone spaces; the war band who normally slept there were on their feet, surrounding a group of about five strangers.

Wulfgar pushed through to them. “All right,” he said wearily. “I’m the Jarl. Who are you?”

The men fell silent; they glanced at one another. Finally one of them spoke. “Farmers, lord, some of us; others are freedmen. We come from the Harvenir district, about two days’ journey from here to the north.”

“And?”

The man threw an imploring look at his companions. The thrall had been right, Jessa thought; these men were more than frightened.

“Lord.” The man grabbed Wulfgar’s arm. The bodyguard jerked forward but he waved them back. “Lord, speak to your watchmen! Double the guard on the ships and the approaches to the hold!”

“Why?”

“Do it, please!” The man was sweating. “Please! The thing may be close behind us.”

His words rang in the flame-lit, shadowy spaces; the men of the hold felt amulets and thorshammers discreetly.

“Thing?” the Jarl said quietly.

“A creature, a great troll, who knows what it is! Something that kills without mercy.”

The silence was deep. Then Wulfgar turned easily and murmured names, commands. Some men left quickly, still consumed with curiosity.

Jessa beckoned two of the house thralls. “These men need food,” she said, “and some hot, spiced ale. Hurry with it.”

The strangers stared at her, restless, unfocused.

“Sit down,” Wulfgar said to them. “Bring those benches here, to the fire.”

The five men sat silent, flames licking their spread fingers. They seemed spent, worn out with weariness and some heavier dread that dried up their words. When the food came, they ate quickly, among the whispers of the war band.

Wulfgar was patient. When the ale was poured, he came and sat on the bench opposite them, leaning forward.

The spokesman had recovered a little. He shook his head, his face haggard. “Forgive me… Jarl … the way I spoke…”

“Forgotten,” Wulfgar said. “Now tell me what has happened.”

Jessa picked up a blanket from the straw and threw it around her shoulders. The hall was a great darkness behind her.

“My name is Thorolf of Harvenir,” the man said wearily. “These are my neighbors. Karl Ulfsson, Thorbjorn the Strong and his sons. We came to warn you.”

“Of what?”

The man gripped his hands together tightly. “We don’t know,” he whispered. “None of us have seen it clearly. Glimpses. Movements in the snow. Above all, prints and tracks. It must be huge, ferocious, an evil sending.”

“A bear?” somebody said.

Thorolf shook his head doubtfully. “It thinks,” he said quietly.

Jessa glanced at Skapti. His face was alert against the flame light. Beyond him Vidar was listening too.

“Two days ago,” the farmer said, “one of my bondsmen, a strong reliable man called Brand, went out to look for some stragglers from the reindeer herd. By nightfall he hadn’t returned. We feared some accident; the snow is still deep up there in the high pastures, and there are crevasses.... In the morning, as soon as it was light, I took men and dogs to look for him.”

He rubbed his face wearily. “It took us all morning to find him. What there was left of him.”

There was utter silence in the hall. His voice sounded very small when he spoke again.

“In a wide snowfield we found marks, blood, a smashed ski. Something had been dragged to a scatter of trees. The dogs wouldn’t go near, but we did. You can imagine how it was.... We buried him and hurried home. At first we thought, like you, that some bear had had him, some wolves, but when we saw the prints—”

“What were they like?” Skapti interrupted.

“Too big. A long foot with five splayed toes. Almost human, but … clawed.” After a moment he went on. “At the farm we brought the cattle indoors, shuttered the windows, barred the doors. The weather closed in at dusk; snow fell thickly, and the wind roared and howled. All night strange noises moved and shuffled around the house, snuffling, banging, scratching, as if some great beast was out there. We sat awake, all of us, my wife, my children, the men armed with axs. Once it tore and shoved at the door; the whole thing shuddered. No one dared sleep; we kept the fire banked up; the room was heavy with smoke. Even the cattle were still, as if they smelled it out there, the thing that prowled....” He glanced around at their attentive faces. “I never want to see another night like that. Finally morning came. Things seemed quiet; we dug ourselves out. Prints were everywhere. The byre had been smashed open, clawed apart. Snow had frozen everything, white and hard.”

He paused, and Wulfgar said, “But you didn’t see it?”

“No. Just the footprints. But since then, there have been other times.” He drank, as if parched, and the man beside him leaned forward, the one called Thorbjorn, a great black-bearded man.

“It was at my farm too. Two goats vanished; there’s no trace of them. The dogs howling in their chains. Karl here lost reindeer, sheep, a dog. None of us dare go out, master! Our children can hide indoors but men have to tend the flocks; spring is coming....”

“I understand that,” Wulfgar said quietly, “but you say it thinks?”

Thorolf raised his head. “Yes.”

Jessa stepped closer to the fire. The cold at her back made her shiver; Skapti eased aside for her.

“We set a trap,” the farmer explained, “at Karlsstead. We dug a pit in the floor of a byre and covered it with loose sticks and straw. A goat was tethered at the back. For a bear, that would have been unlikely to fail, don’t you think?”

Several men nodded.

“If you were careful,” Vidar murmured.

“We were careful.”

“So what happened?” Jessa urged.

Thorolf looked at her as if he had only just noticed her. “For two nights, nothing. Then on the third, a night of silent snowfall, Karl’s youngest daughter opened the corner of the shutter and looked out. She says she saw a shape moving in the drift, glimmering. A big, pale shadow.”

“It still could have been a bear.”

“It could. But in the morning the goat was gone. Neither hair nor bone of it remained. The covering over the trap was still in place. Instead the planks from the back had been torn wide. And, masters, the child said the shape carried something squirming under its arm.”

They were all silent. Wind creaked through the rafters high up in the hall; the fires crackled loudly. What sort of bear carried its prey away like that? Jessa wondered. Wulfgar glanced at Vidar, his face edged with firelight.

“What do you think?”

“A bear can be cunning,” the gray man said slowly, fingering the scar at his lip.

“But like that?”

“If not a bear, then what?”

No one answered. No one wanted to put words on it.

“Has it been about in daylight?” Wulfgar asked. He glanced at Skapti. “They say there are things—trolls, snow beasts, mere dwellers....”

The skald shrugged thin shoulders. “In sagas, yes. Things that throw a shadow on the heart.”

“Jarl,” Thorolf interrupted, “whatever it is, we need help. One man is dead already.”

Wulfgar nodded. He brooded for a moment, then said, “Men will ride back with you. Tomorrow is the Freyrscoming. After that, I’ll come myself.”

“You don’t understand.” The farmer put the cup down and gripped his big fingers desperately together. “I haven’t explained myself well. I knew I wouldn’t.... I said the creature thinks. It plots. It’s journeying with a purpose, not just scavenging here and there. We plotted its progress through our lands; it moves on, always south. Hard terrain doesn’t stop it.” He looked up. “We rode here swiftly, on horseback, without stopping. The thing walks, hunts, sleeps maybe, but it won’t be too far behind us.”

Wulfgar stared at him. “What do you mean, behind you?”

“I mean the creature is coming here, lord. It’s coming directly toward the Jarlshold.”