The Islands of the Blessed - Nancy

Chapter Twenty-eight

FULL MOON

“You—! You—!” Adder-Tooth was so enraged, he could hardly get the words out. “You aren’t going anywhere!” He took a deep breath. “Someone is responsible for this! Someone didn’t dry the peat, and it went up like a haystack. Was it you?” He grabbed a terrified servant by the neck and shook him until the man passed out. Adder-Tooth dropped him onto the ground.

The king raged around the cliff, raining blows on anyone he encountered, even children. “Someone did this, and when I find out who it is, I’m going to feed him to the hogboon.”

Everyone was silent, and Jack thought the warriors looked slightly ashamed of their leader. It was one thing to lose your temper—Northmen did it all the time—but to blame people for natural catastrophes was foolish. Ships sank in storms, rats ate grain, haystacks burst into flame. These things happened. The warriors were not to know, of course, that this time someone was responsible.

“It’s fate,” one of the men said.

The king whirled around and fetched him a blow that knocked out teeth. “How dare you contradict me!” He drew his sword. “Was it you? Have you been plotting against me?” The man had fallen to his knees and his mouth dripped blood. Other warriors pulled him away and several more formed a barrier with their hands on their swords.

The king suddenly realized he’d gone too far. “Thor’s thunderbolt!” he cried, clutching his head as though struck by a sudden pain. “I was overcome with battle fury. For a moment I saw enemies around me and thought I heard the hoofbeats of Valkyries riding through the sky. Please forgive me! I know you are loyal men.”

The warriors relaxed their grip on their weapons, for they all understood battle fury. Jack knew it was a favorite Northman excuse for bad behavior, but sometimes the fury was genuine. Some berserkers were born that way and couldn’t help running mad. Jack didn’t think Adder-Tooth was one of them.

“We can’t stay in this ruin tonight,” the king said. “Gather the livestock and we’ll go to the village.”

“Is that safe?” one of the men said, keeping distance between himself and Adder-Tooth.

“The hogboon has never bothered the village,” the king said scornfully, and the man flushed. Adder-Tooth was hinting that the man was a coward. “Personally, I think it is a stupid creature, always returning to the place it fed. I, of course, shall return here after I’ve seen you to safety. This is my hall, burned though it is, and I will not abandon it.” The warriors murmured, but what they said was unclear.

Everyone began gathering emergency supplies from the barns and kitchen. Sheep were driven out and a few of the chickens were packed in baskets, to be cared for in the village. The rest would have to stay behind. Even the skald was given a sack of oats to carry. By now Little Half had recovered his wits, though the side of his face was turning purple. Big Half squatted beside him and said cheerfully, “You know what, little brother? You look just like I do after a game of Bonk Ball.”

During the long afternoon the ashes cooled, until the warriors were able to enter the ruined hall and poke around with their spears. “It’s hot, but I think we can get through,” one of them said.

Another cursed when he tried to open the iron door. “Wrap your hands in cloth before you touch this,” he called.

Jack saw to his amazement that the stone walls had changed. The sandstone slabs had melted together into one mass, like clay in a potter’s oven. He felt them cautiously and found the surface smooth. What kind of fire had he called up?

Once the door was opened, groups began to move through. Nightfall was not far away and they had to hurry. They dragged the sheep, bleating and complaining, through the still-smoking embers. With the sinking of the sun, the anger radiating from the outer wall increased, and Jack heard the whisper of fell voices in his ears. A cold wind blew a plume of ash into the late-afternoon sky.

A group of villagers was waiting outside and rushed to help family members and friends. They had seen the smoke from afar. The rest were at home, arming themselves in case it had been a raid from across the sea. “It was a magic fire,” the skald told his goggle-eyed audience. “I swear I saw a dragon breathe on us and turn the stones to glass. I’ll write a poem about it.”

Their shadows stretched eastward as they walked through the heather, so that they appeared to be a party of giants going for a stroll. The sheep ran back and forth distractedly as sheep do, and the children ran back and forth to herd them. After a while Jack saw the village. Beyond it, floating on a green sea in the late light, was Skakki’s ship.

“Skakki may be badly outnumbered,” whispered Thorgil, “but if I were Adder-Tooth, I would not trust the loyalty of some of these men.”

Jack agreed. Many of them had served Bjorn and no one seemed to have much respect for Adder-Tooth. He wasn’t the kind of man who inspired devotion. Jack had noticed that the king kept a personal guard of twenty men close to him and guessed that these were his original crew. They hung back from the main body of travelers and insisted on keeping Jack and Thorgil with them. “The Bard will have a plan to rescue us,” Jack said quietly to Thorgil. “He always knows what to do.”

“The hogboon awakes! Run for your lives!” Adder-Tooth suddenly shouted.

The villagers panicked. Mothers snatched up children, men thrashed the sheep with sticks, the sheep bleated and bounded forward. The warriors ran behind, urging them on.

Big Half slung Little Half over his shoulder, but the extra weight slowed him down and they were quickly left behind. “You! Come with us!” commanded the king. Big Half reluctantly obeyed.

What rotten luck, thought Jack. Now we’ll have to spend the night on that wretched cliff. But to his surprise, instead of returning to the ruined hall, the troop turned aside. They went south and followed a faint trail at the bottom of a valley.

It was that time of evening when everything blurs together in a twilight, and very quickly Jack lost all sense of direction. Round and about they went through a confusing jumble of low hills. The sky was a bright gray and tendrils of mist drifted up from ponds gleaming like mirrors in the dark heather.

At last they reached a wide bowl in the midst of the hills with a single, solitary bulge rising in the middle. The men were huffing and puffing by now, and they stopped to catch their breath. A sunset glow still shone in the western sky. To the east a glorious full moon was rising. “What are you doing, master?” wailed a voice Jack recognized as Little Half’s. “We must flee to the hall as fast as we can!”

“Not this time,” Adder-Tooth said. “This time the debt will be paid in full.”

There was an immediate intake of breath among the men. The light was muted, but Jack was able to make out the shape of the bulge. It was far more regular than a natural feature and at the top was a solitary standing stone. Jack was willing to bet it had Pictish carvings on it.

“How will it be paid?” someone said.

Something struck Jack then: The king had said “paid in full”. Was it possible that Little Half had lied about Adder-Tooth not sacrificing to the hogboon? And that visitors to the king’s hall had conveniently disappeared?

“I never told you lads the whole story about the man buried in this barrow,” Adder-Tooth said. He sounded completely relaxed, as though he had nothing to worry about from whatever lurked in this hollow. “He was a Pictish king called Nechtan. It was rumored he’d been fed roasted wolf hearts as a child to make him savage. And savage he was,” Adder-Tooth said approvingly. “He made a pact with one of the old gods to sacrifice one of his own sons every ten years in return for long life. Eventually, he slew nine. One was left.

“Nechtan needed a wife to give him more sons and so, when he was a hundred and fifty years old, he arranged to marry a young princess. But on the wedding day his surviving son let an army of enemies into the hall. They slew Nechtan and carried off the princess. Ever since then his spirit has searched for her. If he accepts Thorgil in her place, he may leave the rest of us alone.”

“You won’t buy safety with this coward’s trick,” said Thorgil. “My brothers will avenge me!”

“I thought you wanted a princess for marriage,” objected Little Half.

“So I do,” Adder-Tooth said with a cold smile, “so I do. But not for me. You were willing enough to help me on other occasions, my treacherous friend—the odd visitor, a runaway slave. Your sleeping potions have been most useful.”

“Little Half, what have you been doing?” cried Big Half, aghast.

“Looking after you, you poor, stupid ox,” the dwarf said. “Do you think anyone would have hired you with your pitiful skills? You can’t even catch a ball. I was the one the lords wanted, the intelligent one who came up with entertainments and battle strategies. I served them for whatever purpose they wanted in return for tolerating you.”

All this took place while the moon’s rays had been strengthening, and the standing stone now stood out starkly with a long black shadow flowing behind it. “The hogboon will emerge when the moon stands directly overhead,” said Adder-Tooth. “By then we must be long gone. Bind them both and leave them on the barrow.”

“Take Thorgil with you,” said Jack. “She can’t replace Nechtan’s bride because she isn’t really a princess.”

“I am so!” said Thorgil.

“You aren’t helping a bit,” Jack said.

The king laughed. “Children, children, now isn’t the time to start squabbling. Save your energy for the hogboon.”

“At least give me a sword and let me meet my fate like a true warrior,” said the shield maiden.

“Ah, but you are not a warrior now, little princess,” said Adder-Tooth. “You are the bride Nechtan has been waiting for these long years. But don’t be afraid. He will not consume you, though I could not say the same for your friend. He will take you into his barrow to feast on earthworms and drink the cold dew that trickles inside.”

“Master, it isn’t right—” began Big Half. Jack heard the man grunt as someone, possibly Little Half, punched him in the stomach.

“Shut your mouth,” snarled the dwarf. Big Half began to whimper, a terrible sound from such a large man.

The warriors tied Jack and Thorgil up and carried them onto the barrow, after which Adder-Tooth called for a swift return to the hall. When their footsteps had died away, Thorgil said, “They took my knife, but if we can get off this barrow, we might find a sharp rock.”

How like her! Jack thought with admiration. She never gave up. He rolled across the grass and was pulled up short. “Something’s stopping me,” he said.

“Me too. Oh, curse it! Those wolf droppings have tethered us to that standing stone!” Their legs were bound and their hands were tied behind their backs, but with much effort, they managed to wriggle close enough to reach each other’s ropes. The cold made their fingers too clumsy to accomplish anything.