Fargoer (21 page)

Vierra didn’t get see Rika before she left as she kept away and didn’t come to say goodbye to the three as they left at first light. Only later, while unpacking their food, Vierra found the necklace. And it was finely made, of countless teeth and bones of different animals. After a moment’s hesitation, Vierra slipped it on her neck, and hid it under her under her furs.

Hatred flows southward

The large gathering glade of the Kainu was full of people, for the second time that spring. At the center of the forest glade was the huge council stone, surrounded by white, old birches. The last time Aure had stepped on the stone, the birches had been bare. Now they had conjured tiny leaf buds that edged the serious, hooded figure of the chieftain.

There were nearly a hundred listeners, the finest of all the tribes. Women and men, all wearing bows on their backs and knives on their belts. The southern Kainu were distinguishable by their clothing: in addition to skins they had more wool and cloth, which they had made themselves or traded with Vikings and other southern people. The northernmost had painted their faces with blue patterns, in the old way of the Kainu when going to war. The group was a frightening sight, and one didn’t envy the raiders making their way up from the south, unaware what they would be facing.

Aure whittled an arrow on the stone. After sharpening it, she lifted it high over her head and sang:

Straight is the arrow of war
Bitter is the point of hate
You are one among the many
My enemy’s last fate

Fly as the wind, fly with my wrath
Fly until the peace will come
Shattered then will your shaft be
Peace will boom the chieftain’s drum

Aure stepped down from the rock, and the whole group started to move toward south, with no specific order. On the well-trodden paths the journey progressed fast, here and there were fields and the group passed a group of winter houses from a distance. Scouts were chosen, and they went in every direction, probing the area and looking for signs of the southern people’s bands.

In the evening the group approached a great lake, the northern shore of which had traditionally been the southern part of the Kainu lands. Vierra had gone ahead of the main group scouting, when human sounds carried into her ears. She sneaked closer and saw a group of ten men, sitting by a fire and roasting fish. The southerners’ campfire still burnt brightly when the Kainu were ready to ambush them from every direction, from an arrow’s distance.

There was no mercy. The Kainu worked as hunters, as always. More than twenty bows spoke their deadly words almost instantaneously. Most of the southerners fell on the spot. One young man fell face first to the fire, which roused a cloud of sparks and filled the air with the stench of burning flesh. An older grey-bearded man managed to run a few steps before falling down, impaled by multiple arrows. When all had fallen, the Kainu rushed from the forest like wolves and finished the job with their knives. The Kainu rarely went to war, and when they did, it wasn’t a beautiful sight.

“We will escort them to the underworld, like we would our own. We will do it tomorrow at sunrise. Now we shall camp here and sing for the honor of their spirits.” Aure organized her group and they slept in one huddle, with two guards at any given time. By the campfire, the Kainu sang quietly their songs of the underworld. This was one of their ways to make sure that the ghosts of the slain southerners wouldn’t come back, to avenge the wrong they had experienced.

Vierra woke before sunrise. The campfire still glowed, but the area was gloomy and silent. Vierra looked around and saw sleeping Kainu here and there, but no guards anywhere. While she was wondering, Aure and Kaira stepped from the forest. They sneaked back to the camp and started to build up the waning fire.

“What happened?” Vierra asked her cousin.

Aure looked surprised for a moment. “We heard noises from the forest and went to see. There was nothing there though, you just go back to sleep.” She set the hood better on her head.

Here and there some woke up at the sound of talking, but, as the conversation had ceased, they soon went back to sleep. Vierra lay back down, but could not shake off the feeling that something was not right and she couldn’t sleep anymore.

The first rays of the rising sun fell upon a great funeral pyre. Large trees had been felled the previous evening, and they were now ignited from many spots with feather-sticks. The southerners’ bodies had been piled on top of the trees, and there they burned along with the wood. No more songs were sung and, when the Kainu moved out, only a funeral pyre was left, to burn in the middle of the forest.

The Kainu continued south, along the shores of the great lake. The boats of the slain southerners were put to use, and rowed toward the south along the shoreline. Aure had divided her group in two: one moving through the forest on the eastern side under her command, while the other group went with Kirre on the western bank.

Kirre was the leader of the southern Kainu, a seasoned and cruel woman who was made for leading a war party. Only a few votes had separated Kirre and Aure when they had chosen the high chieftain to lead the group in the gathering.

Vierra was with Aure’s group. Because of her sharp eyes she had been put on one of the boats taken from the southerners. From there she scanned the horizon, on the lookout for southern boats, should any appear. Kaira was rowing the boat, keeping its presence as imperceptible as possible by going through coves, reeds and gliding behind rocks. The Kainu knew that the southerners preferred to use boats, and kept roughly to the same routes every year. The boats made it easy and effortless to transport their stolen cargo back south.

“Look at those glades,” Kaira stated after a long silence, and pointed his thick finger toward openings in the forest in the south. “The southern hay-biters have burned forest for their hay crop. It will take a long time before a decent forest will grow there.”

“That’s nothing. The invaders have burned even larger ones around their villages, so big that you couldn’t shoot an arrow from one side to another with a weak bow. They can stay at their houses for weeks and just work, without going to hunt or fish in between.”

“They aren’t real people, those Vikings. And our southern people are well on their way to become like them.”

“Look,” Vierra interrupted their discussion and pointed at a boat that had been beached in one of the bays.

At the same moment, two men dashed from the forest as if evil spirits were after them. It was just as bad, as angry swarms of arrows, one after another, were shot from the forest. Some magic was protecting these southern men, for no arrow struck them, and they immediately pushed their boat into the water. An older, sturdy man went for the oars and rowed for his life. The boat glided out into the lake and was soon outside the reach of the arrows shot by the Kainu standing on the beach. A yell was heard from the shore.

“Vierra and Kaira, row after them and kill them, so they can’t warn the others.”

A rowing competition started on the lake, with a prize of life and death. The southern man pulled hard on the oars, making their boat fly towards south and safety. But in the end, Kaira’s oar pulls were longer. His arms, legs and back took turns on the work and muscles bulged from wherever they showed under his leather garment. Slowly, inevitably, one pull at a time, the Kainu boat caught up on the escapees.

Vierra stood up on the speeding boat bracing her legs against the sides, a deed that showed considerable balance and mastery. She drew her bow and released after just a brief moment of aiming. An angry arrow darted from her weapon, striking its target with infallible acuity. The rower on the other boat collapsed, his heart impaled by the arrow. Without a rower the boat quickly slowed down and was left adrift. Vierra drew another arrow to her bow, but didn’t see the other man on the boat.

“Kaira, row closer to the boat, carefully,” she directed the rower, who slowly pulled the boat towards its goal.

The wind turned the southerners’ boat and the approaching Vierra and Kaira saw the other man. He was crouched down in the bottom of the boat, making no signs of resistance.

“Turn the aft toward it and row backwards, I’ll go and see,” Vierra whispered quietly. Kaira made it so, and Vierra set down her bow to the bottom of their own boat. When the boats touched, she jumped lightly into the southerners’ boat, with her scramsax in hand. She yanked the crouching man up and got ready to thrust her blade into his throat.

Vierra’s hand stopped, however, when she saw the man’s face. A boy, barely ten summers old, stared back at her. The blond hair was stained with dirt and sweat, young blue eyes expanded and full of panic. Inside Vierra rose a storm of conflicting forces. A voice said, “Kill the southerner. Even if it’s not adult yet, it will soon be one, a fur collector. It won’t thank you if you let it go, but it will kill you if it gets the opportunity.” But even stronger was the voice that said, “It could be your son, if he was still alive. He’s a little older but he has the same blond hair and blue eyes. So what if he’s a southerner, is he that much different? He’s just a child.” For but a moment Vierra struggled with herself on what to do.

She turned and rolled the dead man overboard into the water, and jumped back into her own boat. Looking at the boy and pointing towards the south with her finger, she yelled frantically.

“Go on! Row home while you still can!”

The boy was so shocked that he didn’t immediately realize what was happening, but, after a moment, he stumbled to the rower’s seat and started to pull the boat jerkily towards the south. Vierra looked at the moving boat for a moment, and then blurted.

“They’re even sending children to do their bidding! Row back to the shore.”

Kaira didn’t say anything, just pulled the oars. Vierra couldn’t tell if he agreed with her or not. That was his nature; his emotions were hidden inside him so that nobody else could see them.

An argument quickly started with Aure on the shore about what had just happened.

“Why didn’t you kill him? You even gave him a boat to travel with! He will surely warn others that come along.” Aure said with a poisonous voice.

Anybody else would have been frightened in the face of the chieftain’s anger. Vierra looked calm. If there was turmoil inside her, she didn’t show it.

“He was just a boy. I won’t kill children, southerners or not. I have seen enough children die for one lifetime. I will not kill more of them, not even if my own life depended on it.

“You! You have been through such a lot, for you’ve lost one son. I guided all three of my daughters to the underworld last winter, when you sat inside a house in faraway lands. Two of my men I buried to the same pile, and the third one seems useless, for he lets enemies get away.” She gave a leer toward Kaira, who was expressionless. “If any of us die because of this, their lives are on your soul. And if the hunt fails, we will never forgive.” Aure’s face was like a petrified mask.

Vierra looked calm, adamant in her decision. Others were silent. Arguing with each other was unheard of in this situation, when everyone’s life depended on their joint strength and determination. When the group started moving again, whispers passed between neighboring tribe members whenever they thought they would not be overheard by Aure or Vierra.

This time Aure didn’t order the bodies to be burned, but drove her troops south for the whole day until evening. As dusk set over the land, sounds of fighting could be heard from the other side of the lake. They looked over the water, but in the dim light the moon threw down even Vierra couldn’t see anything on the opposing shore. It soon became too dark to continue on and they had no choice but to stop for the night. They didn’t light a fire, but spent the night sleeping side by side, sharing the warmth of each other’s bodies.

The siege

The trek resumed early in the morning. The war party reached the southern end of the lake and paused in a small, treeless glade. A broad, downtrodden path could be seen leading to the south. As they headed towards it, Kirre’s group caught up with them on the edge of the glade. They had met a large group of southerners last night, and the battle that had broken out had claimed the lives of several Kainu. Only a few southerners had escaped their wrath and had run away, bloodied and bruised, to the south.