Casca 7: The Damned (9 page)

There was nothing here save memories and ghosts, but at least some of the ghosts were ones he had loved. He would stay here alone until time's remorseless efforts forced him to leave.

Wandering through the dungeons and lower storerooms, he found a few things which would help him through the
long coming winter. The raiders hadn't found everything. In one of the cells below, a door had been covered by a fallen beam concealing it from casual view. But he knew it was there, for this had been his home, and the room was near the cell where Ragnar had put him to starve to death.

In the room he found kegs of ale and beer and a couple of earthenware jugs with wine still in them. Also there were the things needed for daily life: lines and hooks for fishing, robes for warmth, and some odds and ends which he would need.

In one corner he found a small silver medallion that had been covered by a basket of woven reeds. Picking it up from the dust, he wiped off the face of it until he could make out what was on it ... a serpent winding around the edge of the medallion encircling a jaguar in its coils.

He began to laugh; the sound startled him for a moment. It had been so long since a sound of that nature had come from his lips.
The serpent and the jaguar. The Quetza and Teypeytal. Gods of the Teotec.

He had often wondered if Olaf Glamsson had made it back home. The last he had seem of them were the red sails of their dragon ships disappearing over the horizon, as he tried to keep afloat after being washed overboard. But here he had evidence that they had made it back from the lands of smoking mountains and pyramids where priests and kings wore the feathers of rare birds and sacrificed the living hearts of men and women to their gods.

He chuckled in his isolation. Gods. He had been a god then, and now he too had returned to ... what? Still chuckling, he hauled a keg of beer and one of the jugs of wine up to the hall and set them aside for later. First he would need to find food. Cursing himself for forgetting and having to make a second trip down into the dungeons for the fishing line and hooks, he went back for them and returned to the hall.

He found a chair in reasonable shape, set it back on its legs, and placed
himself where he had sat before. At the head of the long table he and Lida had passed down judgments for their people. Their people. Perhaps there were still some who lived in the valley.... But he was tired; he would rest this day and on the morrow go to see if there were any left.

He spent that night in the chair wrapped in his furs. He didn't build a fire; it was too early for that. There might be some out there in the forests who would not welcome a stranger. He was stiff and his muscles ached when he pulled himself out of his slumber. He was thankful that no ghosts or memories had come to haunt his sleep.

He cleansed him mouth with a pull from one of the kegs of beer, then spat it out on the floor after rinsing off his gums to rid them of the night film. He fed on a piece of venison that was the last of his supply of food.

Gathering his weapons, leaving the rest of his gear behind, he went out of the Hold into the countryside where the valley had once been dotted with villages that had paid him fealty. There was no one there. Only empty ruins that time had not yet covered up.

It took him a couple of trips to haul back the grain and the few other items he had found in the deserted huts and houses. A brass pot, a bucket, some scraps of rope. Not much, but then he didn't need much. He was to be as alone as if he were a castaway on some far distant deserted island where no ships ever sailed.

The next weeks he spent gathering the food he would need for the long winter. The cove gave him fresh fish which he brought to the smokehouse to cure or hung in strips to dry. The forests provided venison and bear. Some of the meat he smoked, but when the nights became colder, he knew he could just leave the meat outside where the cold would keep it fresh for him.

The days grew shorter and the leaves fell from the trees, leaving them stark and bare to increasing winds that came in from the North Sea. He worked at gathering supplies, watching the skies turn ever darker until there were no more than three or four hours of true daylight before night fell.

The first lone chunks of ice started to drift with the tide into the cove as overhead flights of birds were heading south, some as far as Africa. The birds he looked for the most were the swans. Their wings gave strong graceful sweeps as they sailed through the skies.

Then came the quiet. The sounds of living creatures were gone. Those left were deep in their winter sleep. Those that could not sleep through the long dark would be the hunters, but he hadn't heard the cry of wolves yet.

For now he was alone with the creaking of the doors in the Hold or a low moaning when the sea wind found openings in the windows and halls. He took to walking the dark passages at night looking here and there for what he didn't know. At times he would start to laugh for no apparent reason, as if he knew some great joke on himself.

The only room he fixed at all was the one he had shared with Lida, where he put a rough cot and a single chair to sit in by the fire. It would have taken too much effort to heat the great hall by himself and he didn't need it anyway. Lida's room was enough. There, in the dark, watching the fire flicker, tossing off small sparks to wink and fade, he felt close to her. Several times he caught himself just before he started to ask her something, then would remember she was long dead.

Time was slipping away from him, past and future. He began to find it difficult to tell which
was the real now. Only once did he go to the grave of Lida at the field of Runes where they were wed and where he had destroyed the Saxon invaders. The spot where he had lain her body was gone. There was no way to tell exactly where the grave was; only the monolithic Rune stone with the writings of the Druids on it assured him that she was close by.

He stood by the Rune stone, the wind whipping his beard, sending small bits of frost to collect in the hairs,
then melt under his breath. He saw her again as she was the day they wed. Hair of moonlight set with wild flowers of gold and blue, maidens singing as they shared the moment of joining and he kissed her sightless eyes.

He didn't notice the wetness that ran down his cheeks leaving a path through the grime and smoke until they path lost in his beard to turn into small frozen drops of loneliness. He seldom went near the field after that.

The winter storms began in earnest; gales of ice and snow changed the place into a magic frozen land of crystal palaces and ice orchards. He moved through the Hold, stopping now and then, cocking his head to the side as if someone had asked him something. Then he would snort and move on, making a small noise under his breath.

At times he would find himself sitting on the walls of the fort looking out at the cove which now was frozen over. He could hear the ice cracking under its own pressure as the ice forced against
itself, expanding. It was in one of those moments he first heard the wolves in the distance.

He got to where he thought he recognized individual animals from their tones ... the way they held a cry then
wavered it on the end, letting the notes drift off to be lost in the cold night skies. If the mood hit him he would join them in their singing, raising his head, ignoring the crust of frost that gathered on him from the bitter sea mist. He would face the moon, imitating the wolves, and laugh in childish glee when one or more would answer him.

That winter wrapped itself about him; he no longer bothered to try and wash or shave off his ragged, hairy face. Even the scar on the side of his face running down to the corner of his mouth was partially lost in the hair and grime. His eyes sunk in, the gray blue turning darker to the shade of pale coal. He cared nothing for the seasons, as winter slowly gave way to the spring. They were all the same to him.
Another winter, then one more, until he lost track of them. Each day had a sameness to it that increasingly took his mind further away from reality.

Then came the winter of the freeze that split trees down the center.
Even giant oaks ten feet around had their sap crystallize and expand until they burst open.

Casca hunted like an animal. When he saw seals on the ice, he wrapped himself in a fur robe,
then would crawl out onto the ice. Twisting and turning he moved closer to them, imitating their movements, until he was close enough to make a cast with his spear. He seldom bothered to cook meat anymore; it took too much effort. And if the meat was fresh, he would sink his teeth into the still steaming carcass and tear off chunks of rich red flesh, half chew it, throw his head back and gulp it down the way bears or wolves do.

His hair had grown long enough to reach the small of his back and his beard hung in matted knots to his chest. His hands turned into claws. The nails, yellow, thick and curving, were talons with which he could tear meat from a kill and not have to use his knife. He had become half man, half beast. All
those unfortunate enough to stumble upon him would surely think the creature before him was some kind of monster. And for that reason, no human being was safe in his presence, for Casca's mind was no longer his own.

Seasons turned one to the other. He gradually quit even trying to clean up the area he lived in. The Hold had been well on its way to becoming a cobweb; insect, and rat infested heap when he arrived, and by the end of the second year, that was exactly what it was.

The scraps of his meals lay about on the floors until rats hauled them off to their corners to feed on, until they learned that the strange animal that shared their home wasn't interested in them. Then they would just feed wherever they found food, even at his table while he was there. The more courageous of the pests would leap to the top of the table, give him a look of disdain, and drag a meaty bone off right under his nose.

The kegs of beer and wine Casca left alone, not wanting to drink what little remained of them, for then there would be no more. He just took a small cup once in a while to taste something besides water or bloody meat.

It was spring when company came to stay for a while.

Casca was sitting in his chair in the Great Hall nearly dozing when he heard a scratching sound near him. He sat still as he focused his eyes. A bitch wolf was standing in the open doorway. They watched each other
the yellow eyes of the wolf and the shadowed ones of the man. He saw that she was holding her front left paw off the floor, small drops of red dripping from it to the dust. Her sides were swollen, but her flanks were gaunt. She had been hurt and was obviously pregnant. He made no move as the wolf took one tentative step inside, then another and another, until she had crossed the hall and went into the dark space under the stairs that led upstairs to his room.

This was interesting. For the first time in longer than he could remember something had caught his interest. Why had the wolf come in here? Normally they avoided the Hold. True, when winter was at its hardest, some of them did come to the courtyard to take the scraps of his kills. Perhaps that was it. The bitch knew food was here. Probably she had hurt her paw and couldn't keep up with the pack, and from the way her sides heaved, he knew that her time for giving birth was not far off.

Rising from his chair, he took a couple of steps near the stairs, only to be met by a low warning growl. He backed off and went to his table. On it was a haunch of venison, fairly well chewed over, but there were still several large chunks of red meat on it. Picking it up, he tossed it under the stairs in front of the wolf. She made no move for the meat. Shaking his shaggy, dirty head, he went on up the stairs, leaving his new guest to her privacy.

Casca went out on the hunt. He found he was near the marsh following a deer trail. Stopping, he watched the wisps of vapor hover, float, rise and fall. Tendrils of mist reached out, then were whisked away to have their place taken by others.

Leaning up against a large rock, he saw it was the Rune stone and backed away from it. As he did he nearly stumbled when his foot bumped into a head sized stone. He caught his balance, then nearly tripped over another. Looking down he saw the ground he was standing on was a depressed area about ten feet long and four wide. He had found Lida's grave. Slowly, he first knelt then lay down lengthwise on the grave, burying his face in the rich earth. He cried out for her as if his voice could bring her back to him, up from the pit in which she now lay for eternity.

Great wracking sobs tore at him until he could stand no more. Eyes blind, he rose and started to run, not knowing where. His legs had become leaden, not wanting to do his bidding. They were heavy, warm, wet things that pulled at him. He had run into the marsh. Pulling out of the mud pit, he fell down on a grassy hummock, chest heaving,
mind torn. Sitting up, he ignored the slime that clung to him. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He just wanted to be left alone to forget. To get away from the pain of his existence and the terrible loneliness of his soul.

The mists moved in around him, touching him with fingers of damp air. He heard something. Tilting his head, he heard it again.
Something familiar reaching out to him. The mists lightened then darkened, one then the other, blinking, turning one way then another, taking forms that meant nothing....yet something...that seemed to call to him from the shadows.

He heard his name ...
Casca
, it came as a whisper over and over,
Casca
...