Wayland slung his bow and placed the iron goods and cloth in his outstretched hands. He advanced as if he meant to lay them under the dangling man. Lapps rose up on both sides. They wore hooded smocks of reindeer skin with the fur inside, the hoods trimmed with wolf or fox fur. They were a small race, the men not much more than five feet tall, but decently formed and nothing like the vicious dwarfs described by the Vikings. Most carried small bows or stone axes and some of them had horns made from birch bark. He didn’t see anyone carrying Raul’s crossbow. They probably didn’t know how to work it or lacked the strength to span it.
Wayland stopped short of the arch. Raul hung with his arms upraised and his head drooping to his chest. His clothes had been ripped to tatters and were heavily stained. Much like the bleeding Christs Wayland had seen behind church altars. He’d never known Raul in any condition except bullish vigour and it was shocking to see him reduced to such a pitiful state.
‘Raul, can you hear me? Raul?’
The German raised his head by degrees. ‘Is that you, Wayland?’ His voice was a husky croak. His face was bloody and bruised and one of his eyes had been gouged out. ‘They caught me napping, Wayland. They were on me before I spotted them. They’re stealthy devils.’
‘How many did you kill?’
‘Three, I reckon. One of them just a kid. I loosed at the first one I saw and took off running. They noosed me with ropes and then they all came down on me. They bust my ribs and God knows what else.’ He coughed and dragged in a whistling breath. ‘I’m hurt bad, Wayland.’
‘Don’t talk. I’ll get you down.’
Raul’s head rocked. ‘There ain’t no way you can save my bacon. I’m looking down on the heathens tending the ropes and they’re ready to cut. The kindest thing you could do is put me out of my misery.’
‘I’m going to make a trade. You just …’
A cracked laugh. ‘I ain’t going nowhere.’
Wayland laid down his bow and placed the borrowed sword on top of it.
Raul sucked air and gave a racking cough. ‘There ain’t no use both of us dying.’ His voice fell away. ‘You know what they’re going to do. They’re going to tear me in two.’ His body convulsed in a vague spasm. ‘I never thought I’d go out like one of them martyrs.’
‘You’re not going to die,’ said Wayland. He scanned the trees, searching for a leader. Some of the archers were women and striplings. He singled out an older man who looked like he might have a cool head and walked towards him with the trade goods laid across his hands. He’d gone five or six paces when one of the Lapps loosed a warning shot that darted into the ground a few feet ahead. He glanced back at his weapons. Another half dozen steps and he wouldn’t be able to recover them if the Lapps attacked. His tongue stuck to his palate. He placed one hand on the dog’s shoulder.
‘Wayland,’ Raul called in a voice from deep inside. ‘I appreciate you coming after me. Appreciate it. You’ve done more than any comrade can ask for, so I’m begging you to save yourself. There ain’t much time and I’ve got one last thing to ask.’
Wayland’s face knotted to squeeze back the tears. ‘Ask away.’
Raul dragged in a whistling breath. He couldn’t expand his chest and was slowly drowning. ‘You know how I bragged about going home with a swag of silver. You used to smile and swing your head like you knew I’d blow it away. Well, looks like I ain’t going to get the chance to prove you wrong.’ Raul fell silent for a moment and his head sagged. ‘I ain’t complaining. I got to tell you, Wayland, these last few months have been as good as I’ve known.’ Raul strained against the ropes to relieve the pressure on his lungs. ‘It ain’t for my benefit, but if there’s any silver coming my way, can you make sure it finds its way home? I know Vallon said we were on profits, but I don’t think the captain will begrudge me a few coins. He ain’t a mean man.’
Wayland couldn’t speak. He shook his head.
‘I know you can’t take it yourself. But me and old Garrick were talking and he said that if he made it to Novgorod, he was planning on heading home. I told him to look in on my family and said that if he was thinking about going back to farming, there was some good land to be had. I told him about my sisters and said he might do worse than take one of them to warm his bed.’
Wayland swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘I’ll do that, dear friend, but it isn’t over yet.’ He wiped his hands on his thighs.
Raul gave a lacerated laugh. ‘All the years I’ve known you and that’s the first time you called me “friend”. Pray for my soul, Way land.’
Wayland took one more step. A horn blew and the Lapps shot a volley. At least three arrows struck Wayland, but the nomads’ bows were light and their bone-tipped arrows splintered against his armour. He dashed back to his weapons, while the dog rushed forward in a series of terrifying bounds that made the Lapps tumble back. He glimpsed a shaft sticking out of its leather suit.
He scooped up his bow in his left hand, the sword in his right and ran yelling towards the Lapps guarding the ropes that tethered one side of the arch. Before he reached it there was a twang – another twang – and the two trees straightened up with a swishing sound. Wayland saw the ropes binding Raul spring taut.
‘No!’
Black against the sky, Raul seemed to fly upwards, then he flung his limbs wide and there was a rending and a popping and the two halves of his body dragged apart and swung against the swaying trees. Blood and innards rained on Wayland. Something warm and wet choked off his scream. Loud ululations rose from the Lapps. They charged in and Wayland sprinted for the end of the avenue, knowing it would close before he reached it. Another arrow struck him in the ribs and its point pierced his mail. A youth sprang into his path, jabbing with a spear. Wayland took the point on his chest and hacked the pole away. The impact and his counter-thrust threw him off-balance. He staggered into the ground. Fighting for purchase, he saw a pair of feet plant themselves in front of him. He glanced up to see a man poised to strike with a stone axe. He rolled aside and swung his sword through a half-circle. It connected with his attacker’s ankles and the axeman screamed and fell.
Wayland regained his feet and winnowed through his assailants. Most darted back, yelling as if assailed by a force not human. One man seemed mesmerised and Wayland clubbed him aside. He broke clear and the dog rushed up alongside him, two arrows in its leather trappings and its jaws all gory. It turned its eyes on him in a way that seemed to say, ‘Now what?’
He flared away from movement ahead of him. A herd of reindeer.
Hundreds of them, plunging away in grey and brown streams. He accelerated to keep pace with the stampede. Half a mile further on the reindeer veered to the right. As the tailenders passed him, he ran left.
A backward glance showed no one in pursuit. The reindeer had obliterated his tracks. Raul’s death might be enough revenge for the Lapps, and the injuries he’d inflicted must have taken the fight out of them. He slowed, nursing a stitch.
The dog whirled. Wayland turned and saw a pack of dogs bounding towards them, led by a pale wolf with blue eyes. The wolf-dog closed without hesitation and the dog met it head on and drove it to the ground in a whirl of fur and jaws. When the dog broke away, its attacker moved spastically. The pack streamed in, but instead of attacking Wayland, they fell upon their crippled leader.
Shapes flitted through the trees. A line of Lapps about a hundred yards wide. Wayland’s dog rushed up to him, bloody slobber dangling from its jaws. The Lapps reached the pack and drove it apart with whips and boots.
Wayland hadn’t taken flight. He planted the sword in front of him and readied his bow. The dog snarled. ‘Enough killing,’ he shouted. Tears of rage and frustration blurred his vision. ‘Please. I’m sorry Raul killed some of your people, but we’re not slavers. Nobody’s hunting you.’
The Lapps looked along their line, taking courage from their numbers, and then they brandished their weapons and charged again. Wayland shot and didn’t wait to see where the arrow went before haring off. He was running wild now, taking whatever course seemed most open. The sounds of pursuit faded. He ran on.
To get back to the river, he’d have to run in a great circle. He checked the sky. Not long until dark. He settled into a lope. The hauberk must have weighed thirty pounds, but he’d have been dead without it.
He thought he’d put himself in the clear when the sight of reindeer tracks brought him up sharp. Had he run in a circle? No. It was the trail of the group that had left camp that morning. They couldn’t be far ahead. His eyes switched about. A horn blew from behind and then, closer and in front, an answering note sounded. Blocked. He struck out at a right angle.
He could manage no more than a weary jog and he was a long way from safety. The Lapps would track him and they would watch all the paths leading back to the river. He reached a bog that slowed progress to a cautious plod. Soon it would be dark. The dismal sky offered no clues to the direction of sunset. From the way the lichens grew on the trees, he guessed he was heading north.
Dusk deepened to dark, the night as black as night could be. Even with the dog’s guidance, he couldn’t plot a course through the ponds and bogs. After sinking to his knees for the third time, he knew he’d have to wait for the clouds to break or the sun to rise. He felt his way into a clump of alders and found a perch of dry ground. Somewhere in the forest a hand drum pattered. From a different quarter came an answering tattoo. The drums tapped out their messages and then fell silent.
‘They’re laying plans for tomorrow,’ Wayland told the dog.
He shared out the food and resigned himself to sitting out the night. He was soaked to the waist and very cold. The chainmail sucked the warmth from his body and he took it off. He felt the arrow wound in his side. Only a puncture, but painful. The dog shoved its head into his chest. He laid his face on its craggy skull and stroked its ears, whispering a lullaby his mother used to sing.
He passed a hellish night and woke from a doze sick and shivering. Still pitch black. He forced himself to his feet and bent and stretched until he’d got his blood circulating. He watched the sky. When a crow cawed, he knew it was time to go. In the wildwood he’d learned that the first crow flight was the true herald of day. He put on the hauberk then, holding the dog with one hand, he groped across the bog. If he could travel a mile before the Lapps resumed their hunt, he might be out of the vicinity before they closed a circle around him.
Light when it came rose sourceless, like a grey mist. No hint of sun to give him bearings. Scattered trees loomed into being. Only the trees closest to him had solid form; the rest were dull phantoms.
Daylight found him still picking his way across the bog. Water squirted out under his feet and every step produced a sucking sound. He stopped often to survey his path, the ground wobbling beneath him. In one place it gave way and he plunged up to his groin. If the
dog hadn’t been there to lend its strength to his efforts, he might never have got out.
Eventually he learned that the trick was to skate across the surface, not resting his full weight on one spot. He went on at a faster rate and saw pine trees marking drier ground. As he made for it, a woodpecker’s whistling cry rang through the still air. He paid no heed until another and more grating call sounded. He stopped and tried to locate the cries. The first bird called again, behind and to his left. The second bird answered, also from the rear and over to the right. Wayland had seen the birds that made these cries. They were twice the size of the woodpeckers he knew from home and their calls had become familiar. He’d never heard them delivered in duet. At the third exchange, he knew they weren’t made by birds.
‘They’ve found our trail.’
He hurried towards the firm ground, the calls passing back and forth behind him. He reached the ridge and examined the ground. He hadn’t come this way yesterday and the earth carried no prints of men or reindeer. He patted the dog. ‘Looks like we got out of bed earlier than them.’
He broke into an easy run. The signals behind grew faint and Wayland allowed himself the hope of striking the river without further drama.
Another birdcall from ahead stopped him as if he’d come up against an invisible barrier. He stalked forward, peering through the sketchy trees. The dog’s hackles were up, a low rumble building in its throat.
Wayland nocked an arrow and drew his bow. ‘I know you’re there.’
Silence.
He scanned the treescape. ‘You’d better get out of my way. You’re not dealing with a lost Viking.’
The trees loomed in grey and spectral shapes. Behind him the maddening birdcalls drew closer. He slung his bow and took out the sword.
‘I’m coming through and I’ll kill anyone who tries to stop me.’ He pulled the coif over his head and hoisted the sword. The dog watched him, tongue lolling.
‘Go!’
He was at full sprint when a figure stepped from behind a tree and hurled a hissing rope so deftly that it seemed like an extension of his
hand. Wayland dodged, glimpsed another coil snaking towards him from another direction. The third loop he didn’t see at all. It dropped over his shoulders and yanked tight, converting forward motion into a violent reverse that whisked him off his feet and slammed the breath out of him. He sat up. Head awhirl, he saw two men pulling on the rope and then he saw them abandon it as the dog smashed into them.
Wayland’s crash had deadened his left side from thigh to shoulder. He regained his feet only to be dragged back to earth by another lasso. A second loop fell over his sword arm and almost wrenched the weapon from his grip. He was bayed and trammelled and if the dog hadn’t been with him he would have gone the same way as Raul. Trappings bristling with arrows, it charged each rope holder in turn, knocking them over, slashing with its jaws, panicking them into flight.
Wayland was still snared but he hadn’t lost his wits or his sword and when the last rope dropped away he hurtled forward as if he meant to throw himself from this world into the next. The shouts of his ambushers faded. Without breaking stride, he pulled off the ropes and threw them aside. He knew where he was. He was on the path he’d followed from the river. He aimed a smack at the dog. ‘We’re through!’