Hereward Read online

  The monk’s two remaining tormentors laughed. ‘Your friend is dead,’ one of them said.

  ‘He is not my friend!’ Alric snapped. ‘He is nothing but a beast.’

  Nearby, the dead man’s companion crashed through the undergrowth, each guttural curse a testament to the fear he now felt. Once again Hereward struck with the speed and efficiency of a wolf, delaying the killing blow just enough to draw out another cry. It rang above the gale whipping through the branches.

  Slipping back to where he could observe the monk and the two remaining raiders, Hereward saw that the Vikings’ faces were drawn; their humour had drained away. The mercenary with the axe made to venture into the trees, but his comrade caught his arm to hold him back.

  Letting his chin fall on to his chest, Alric whispered, ‘He is the Devil.’

  Ignoring the cold, Hereward waited, watching the fear rise in the two warriors. They raised their weapons as they circled the monk, searching for an attack from any direction. Long moments passed with only the howl of the wind and the blast of the snow. The darkness slipped among the trees and enveloped them.

  Finally, Hereward moved from his hiding place. Knotted together by their long hair, the two heads arced from the shadows, twisting and turning to crash into the snow at the feet of the raiders with a splatter of blood.

  Overcome with rage at the slaughter of his comrades, the warrior with the axe roared his battle cry and raced forwards. The warning from the other Northman came too late.

  Spectral in the gloom, Hereward stepped from behind a spreading oak and swung his sword into the back of the raider’s neck. Before the Viking had even hit the ground, the naked, blood-streaked man bounded towards the final mercenary. Hereward felt the rush of his bloodlust engulf him. The world diminished to his opponent’s eyes and the dance of blades.

  The Northman ducked the first strike though it drove him back. A storm of iron, Hereward’s sword hacked right and left, high, for the shoulder blade, horizontally towards the ribcage. Struggling to stand his ground, the wild-haired mercenary dodged each blow and tried to bring his own weapon to bear.

  For several minutes, the two men battled around Alric, fighting to keep their feet on the treacherous ground. Lost to his wild passion, Hereward failed to account for the deepening snow. Cursing, he went down on one knee. The mercenary saw his opening and thrust his spear.

  Hereward threw himself to one side, bringing up his left fist into the warrior’s groin. As the Viking doubled over in agony, the English warrior jumped up and rammed his knee into his opponent’s face. The mercenary crashed backwards, unconscious.

  Hereward heaved in a deep breath. As his vision cleared, the whispers in his head fell silent and his rage subsided. He moved to release the monk.

  ‘They could have killed me! You did not know I would still be alive when you returned!’ Alric shouted.

  ‘No, I did not.’ With irritation, the warrior waved a dismissive hand as if swatting a fly. ‘You seem to believe that I care whether you live or die.’

  Once Alric was free, Hereward stripped off the unconscious warrior’s mail shirt, tunic and breeches and dressed in them. His arms and legs felt numb from the cold, but the feeling would return soon enough. Using the blood-soaked garments that had secured the monk, he tied the naked mercenary to the tree.

  Alric slumped on to a fallen trunk, head in hands, repeating a short prayer in a tone of wrenching desolation.

  ‘Do not pray for me. I am long since damned,’ Hereward muttered as he checked the knots were tight.

  ‘I am not praying for you.’ With red-rimmed eyes, the monk levelled a haunted look in the direction of Gedley.

  The Mercian could see that his companion was troubled by more than the deaths of the villagers. ‘Who pays the Northmen? And why do they hunt for you?’

  The young monk wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand. ‘No questions,’ he parroted.

  Hereward shrugged. ‘Then we both have our secrets.’

  Shuddering from the cold, the mercenary started to come round. The English warrior reclaimed his leather pouch from behind the rock and removed his bone-handled knife. With his thumb, he checked the edge for sharpness.

  Uneasily, Alric looked up from his prayers. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I am going to flay the skin from him as I would a deer. And either his cries will draw Harald Redteeth towards us where I can butcher him too, or they will drive him away,’ Hereward said.

  In horror, Alric jumped up. ‘You cannot do such a thing.’

  ‘Fear is what drives all men in this world. Those who wield it, win.’

  ‘No,’ the monk urged. ‘Love.’

  Hereward laughed. ‘When the Northmen first sailed to England in their dragon ships, they defeated us by instilling fear, so we are told. They sacked your monasteries and raped our women and we English ran like whipped dogs. The good Christian folk frighten the heathens to drive them from the land. And your own God threatens you with the Devil and the burning fires of hell if you stray from the path of righteousness.’

  ‘What has made you like this?’

  The mercenary moaned as he came to his senses. When Hereward leaned over him with the knife, the scream tore from his throat before the cold metal had even been pressed to his skin.

  Alric shouted over the din, ‘You rise from the blood of innocents. You kill, without guilt, as if you have no soul. I ask you again — what made you like this?’

  ‘God made me like this.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  The blood-chilling scream ripped through the night-shrouded forest, growing shriller and more intense with each passing moment until it no longer sounded human. For that, Harald Redteeth’s men gave thanks, for they could pretend it was some wild animal or fearsome monster hunting among the trees. But when it rolled on as though it would never end, they bowed their heads and clutched at their ears, unable to extinguish their visions of the suffering their comrade endured.

  Harald Redteeth listened impassively to the agonized sound. He was a mercenary who took the coin of any man, be he merchant, thegn or king, who wanted death dealt quickly and harshly, and his appearance underscored his fearsome reputation. From the eyeholes of his axe-dented helmet, his black, distended pupils reflected the dancing flames of Gedley. His wild hair and beard were stained red by the dyes his people made from the hedgerow berries, his coarse woollen cloak hanging over furs greased with lamb fat that kept out the cold. And underneath those he wore his battle-scarred mail, rusted and bloodstained, and a sweat-reeking tunic. The skulls of birds and woodland animals swung from the hauberk on leather strips. At his side hung his axe, Grim.

  ‘There is still time to save him,’ Ivar, his second in command, muttered.

  ‘He died long ago,’ Redteeth replied. ‘What you hear are the echoes as his spirit leaves his body.’

  Ivar wrapped his woollen cloak around him against the blizzard as he sifted through every brutal campaign and bloody raid he had experienced for something that sickened him more. ‘Why doesn’t the bastard just slit his throat and be done with it?’

  ‘He is trying to draw us out, into the forest, at night, where he has the advantage.’

  ‘And the monk?’

  ‘The tracks show he went with the stranger. If that is true, he could be dead by now, or he will be soon. We will search for his body at first light.’

  The scream continued to plumb the depths of agony. Listening intently, Harald Redteeth noted a melody that no others heard, the song of life that throbbed behind the surface of everything, with a heartbeat for a drum to keep the steady pace until the song came to its end. He began to whistle along. Ivar gave a troubled sideways glance, and took an unconscious step away.

  The monk was business, easily dealt with for the handful of coin, but the stranger was intriguing, Harald ruminated. Who was this warrior who fought with such brutality and passion? And why had he decided to involve himself in a matter that did not concern
him?

  We are the law here, Redteeth said to himself. We decide who survives and who dies. The stranger will not leave Northumbria alive.

  Absently, he held out an open hand. Ivar delved into his pouch and handed over a small number of the dried toadstools. Carefully, Redteeth examined the scarlet caps dotted with white, and the large creamy gills.

  ‘It is the Blod-Monath,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘We have made our sacrifices as our forefathers did, but the Blood-Month demands more. This winter is earlier and harder than most, and now this stranger… I would know what it all means.’ He paused. ‘There is talk among the seers of an ending. Omens… portents…’

  ‘Is this the Fimbulwinter before the great battle that heralds Ragnarok and the end of everything?’ Ivar asked, unsettled.

  ‘Perhaps. Even the Christians see the omens too.’

  ‘They say a raven spoke to Earl Tostig, and he blanched and hid himself away in his hall, and refused to tell anyone what the bird said,’ Ivar remembered with a shudder.

  Redteeth popped one large and one small toadstool into his mouth. ‘We will make camp here where there will be warmth to see us through the night. Leave me now, for I journey far beyond Midgard to the shores of the great black sea. If I die before I return, you will take the lead.’

  Nodding, Ivar walked away, bellowing to the others to set up camp. They all knew the dangers of the ritual Redteeth had embarked on. Sometimes the spirits did not allow the traveller to return with the knowledge he had gained along the shores of that vast sea, or in the dense, endless forest of the night. But Redteeth had wrestled with the powers before on more than one occasion, and he had always returned unscathed, with the words of the vaettir still ringing in his ears.

  The ritual was important, Redteeth thought with fervent passion. The old ways were dying out. The Christians now dominated his homeland, praying in the churches and proclaiming the way of their One True God. But his father had taken him into the woods when he was a boy and told him the meaning of the silver hammer charm he wore on a thong round his neck. The man had cut young Harald’s thumb with his knife and they had shared blood, and then, together, they had butchered a wild-eyed pony with their axes and smeared its essence on their faces. As they sat beside the campfire the boy had learned that the same ritual had been conducted by his father’s father and his father and so on back to when the first man and woman were birthed from the armpit of the frost giant Ymir. The Viking spat. The past was who you were — you could not trade it for a new life.

  Leaving the others behind, he made his way to the rim of the blood-filled dew-pond. While he waited for his journey to begin, he squatted on the edge of the pool and peered into the depths.

  Time passed. The roaring of the fire diminished, and the screaming ended suddenly and starkly. Even the wind dropped so that there was only a comforting silence with the snow falling all around. It was a sign. The guides had heard him.

  Nausea came first, but passed quickly, followed by a sweat that froze upon his forehead. When it cleared, a deep, abiding peace descended.

  Turning to the flickering flames on the embers of what had been the village he saw faces watching him. The vaettir were stirring.

  ‘I will never let the past die,’ he told them.

  Through the stark branches of the swaying trees, he glimpsed the alfar, moving out from their homes in the deep wood. Their eyes glowed with an inner light that spoke of the land across the sea.

  ‘Through blood and fire, I will keep the dreams of my ancestors alive,’ he told them.

  A moment of tension fell across the area, and Redteeth felt that a presence had arrived, although he could not see it. A voice rang out, clear and loud in the depths of his head: ‘Come with me to the shores of the great black sea and I will tell you many secrets. I will tell you of the End-Times that are coming, and the stranger, and the part he will play in it.’

  The Viking mercenary looked round until his gaze alighted on a raven squatting on one of the corpses on the other side of the bloody dew-pond. For a moment, the carrion bird fixed a beady black eye upon him, and then it took wing high into the falling snow and the night.

  Redteeth’s head filled with blood and fire, and he joined it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘Run!’ Hereward barked as he propelled Alric through the white forest. Their hot breath clouded in the bitter night air and the crunch of their footsteps matched the pounding of their hearts.

  A howl rolled out away to their left, echoed by another off to their right. The wolf pack closed.

  Weaving among the oaks and ash trees, the two men slid down banks, leapt rocks and stumbled through patches of brown fern. In places the forest path lay hidden beneath a thick covering of snow and Alric appeared too dazed to search for landmarks.

  ‘He was a man,’ he whispered as they ran, his puffy, tearstained face filled with an abiding horror. ‘One of God’s creations. What you did to him was an abomination.’

  ‘It saved your life.’

  ‘My life is no more valuable than his.’ Wild-eyed, Alric grabbed his companion’s arm and dragged him to a halt. ‘How could you see such agony and still continue?’

  Glancing into the gloom, Hereward glimpsed grey ghosts, the only sound the soft patter of their paws when the wind dropped. He thrust the monk into a clear channel among the trees, only to find their way barred by another stream. ‘You are right — your life is no more valuable than his,’ he snapped. ‘If I did not need you to lead me to shelter, I would leave you out here to fend for yourself.’

  Alric levelled a determined eye. ‘You must pay for your crimes.’

  ‘And what will you do? Strike me with a Bible?’ A flash of grey against the white; low, circling. Another. ‘Now, find the path to the wicce house or we both will die.’

  ‘Perhaps that is for the best. I earn my redemption by keeping a monster like you from the world.’

  Hereward felt his anger rise. He should have left the whining man for dead and been done with it. Drawing his sword, he backed against an oak. ‘Pray for yourself, then. I will not go so easily.’

  Alric hesitated. Hereward watched conflicting emotions play out across the other man’s face. With an anguished cry, the monk whirled until he located a tree that he recognized. He jabbed a trembling finger. ‘That way!’ he said with fury. ‘And may God forgive me for my weakness!’

  Hereward ran alongside the stream towards the tree, but he already knew it was futile. He couldn’t see the house anywhere in the forest dark, and the wolves would be close, following the meaty stink of the blood that caked him.

  He leapt a fallen trunk and found himself skidding down a bank into a hollow clogged with brambles and the remnants of another tree that had been struck by lightning. By the time he realized it was the worst possible position, the wolves had lined the edge of the hollow, their silhouettes stark against the snow.

  ‘Damn them!’ he snarled at Alric as the monk rolled down the bank into a deep drift. ‘It appears that God has granted your prayers!’

  Hacking his way through the vegetation into the centre of the hollow, he began a slow turn, watching for the first attack. He suspected that at least ten beasts moved around the rim; there could be more beyond.

  Alric cried out as the first wolf leapt. An instant later, all the predators surged forward. As fast as the snarling beasts, Hereward flashed his sword back and forth, chopping down two before he was engulfed in a mass of snapping jaws. He fought with fist and elbow, slashing with his sword whenever he managed to free himself enough to swing. Blood smeared his torn flesh as he reeled from the ferocity of the attack.

  Three more wolves fell in quick succession, disembowelled. Before Hereward could catch his breath, another leapt for his throat. Throwing himself to one side, he felt its jaws latch on to his upper arm. He ignored the pain and lunged for the beast’s neck. Clamping his teeth on the wet fur, he tore out its throat. A gush of arterial blood soaked his face as the wolf fell away, thrashi
ng and turning across the hollow in its death throes.

  He glimpsed the terrified monk crammed into a space beneath the roots of the fallen tree, but then the remaining wolves attacked as one. He sliced through two with rapid slashes of Brainbiter, and shattered the skull of the third, but the final wolf caught him wrong-footed. The force of its attack propelled him backwards into the brambles, and as he hit the icy ground his sword flew from his hand.

  The wolf fell on him in an instant. Straining, he managed to hold its snapping jaws an inch away from his throat, but he felt his strength ebbing.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Alric scrambling from his hiding place and bounding up the side of the hollow. At the top, the monk paused to look back, his expression dark, and then he hurled himself over the rim and away.

  The wolf drove its jaws closer and closer to Hereward’s face. Hot breath blasted against him, gouts of saliva splashing his flesh. His arms trembled. All he could see were those cold, jewelled eyes moving nearer, until they filled his entire vision.

  A sudden impact smashed the wolf’s head to one side. Hereward recoiled in shock. When he had gathered himself, he saw the beast lying on the bloodstained snow, its skull caved in. A large bloody rock lay beside it.

  Alric stood nearby, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. He exchanged a glance with Hereward, but all he could manage was a nod.

  ‘Why?’ Hereward asked as he levered himself up, searching for his sword in the snow.

  ‘Because I am better than you,’ Alric gasped. ‘And because I rise to the purpose God gave me.’

  Hereward reached out a hand to be helped to his feet, but the monk only looked at it before pulling himself back up the side of the hollow. ‘I am not your keeper,’ he said.

  Using his sword to help him, Hereward levered himself up the slope. Blood flowed from numerous tears in his flesh, but none of them appeared so serious that he would not be able to survive until they reached shelter. Deep in troubled thought, Alric waited for him beyond the edge of the hollow.