Lord of Slaughter (41 page)

40
Glory

Snake in the Eye wandered down the Middle Way. The fighting around him was fierce, though it seemed almost an irrelevance to him. He was hot with the fear of the wolf he’d met in his dream.

He’d been by the silver river under the light of the big moon, wandering by the wall that held the candles that were the lives of men. The runes had showed him the way through the labyrinth of his mind. He had seen someone there, he couldn’t remember who, but someone he wanted very much to kill. But the wolf had moved against him, the wolf that snuffled and snarled beyond his vision. It had no candle in the wall; it was not a thing of light. No, it was an enemy of light, an eater, a devourer. Its hunger was so intense it was like a smell the thing exuded, potent as musk. Snake in the Eye did not like the way the creature made him feel. He cringed from it when he should have longed to fight it, and he was loath to look inside himself again, to go to that wall by the river where he was a god who could snuff out men’s lives.

The battle made him dizzy. He found it difficult to understand what was going on. Tiny details seemed incredibly important. A gout of blood bloomed on the head of a fallen Varangian like a rose in a girl’s hair. He noticed the dancing, to-and-fro movements of warriors as they clashed shields, retreated and came on again, the billowing blue robes and scarlet cloaks of the Greeks.
What was happening?
The best thing, the thing he had wanted for so long.
Battle
, so beautiful in its flashing silvers, its reds and its whites, vivid even under the muted sun. The sun. He glanced up. A pale disc like a god’s shield. It must have been noon – the sun was not visible at any other time.

Snake in the Eye had his sword drawn and had picked up a fallen shield. He willed himself into the fight, forcing himself to find the aggression he had felt his whole life before that creature had come hot-mouthed through the mind’s night for him.

Three Varangians circled in a stand-off with four Greeks in front of the Bull Market. The wispy mist made it seem like a scene from beneath the sea. Snake in the Eye had heard the tales of Atlantis and now imagined himself there – the buildings looming through silty water, weapons flashing from the murk like quick fish.

A Greek came running at him. Snake in the Eye caught his spear on his shield, stepped in and stabbed down. His blade missed the man’s thigh but took him in the shin. The Greek stumbled, and Snake in the Eye kicked his remaining leg out from under him. The man rolled, but Snake in the Eye dropped on him, smothering his spear with his shield and driving the tip of his sword through his chest. That felt better.

A flash of scarlet. Bollason backed into view whirling and cursing, isolated, surrounded by five Greeks. Now four as the Viking’s strange curved sword cut through a helmet to send a soldier spinning to the cobbles. Snake in the Eye sheathed his sword, picked up the spear and charged. The man he skewered had not seen him coming and Snake in the Eye ran him straight through, battering into one of his fellows and knocking him sideways too. The Greek never had time to regain his balance. Bollason’s sword moved so quickly it seemed he had three hands and three weapons in them. Three men dead, two left. Bollason kicked one in the centre of the chest, sending him sprawling, then ducked to a crouch as a Greek sword snicked over his head. Bollason dropped his own sword and picked his attacker up, one arm driven up between the legs, the other seizing his tunic. The Greek was lifted high into the air and then smashed head first into the ground. Bollason regained his sword and the remaining Greek ran.

‘Well done,’ said Bollason to Snake in the Eye. ‘So you can fight after all. Stay by me, I may need you.’

Snake in the Eye felt a jolt of energy go through him as he heard the Viking’s words. He had been honoured, and by such a man as Bollason. Often had he dreamed of such a thing.

‘Let’s have some slaughter!’ said Snake in the Eye.

‘We will that!’ said Bollason. He took his horn and blew a great blast.

Vikings came running to him bearing torches. There was a clatter like a hundred sticks rattling against a fence. As if time had slowed, Snake in the Eye saw an arrow bounce off his shield and up to slice away part of his ear. He put his hand up. Blood. Arrows lay all over the cobbles but no one had been hit.

He laughed. Things were getting better and better. No man could look at his wound and not know how he got it.

The rest of the Vikings dived for the cover of the side-streets but Snake in the Eye walked forward, trying to find the archers in the fog.

‘I am Snake in the Eye, son of Ljot, son of Thiörek, of the berserker clan of Thetlief. You ladies don’t bother me with your pins!’

Another volley of arrows, directed towards where the Vikings had abandoned their torches. The archers couldn’t see properly, they were just aiming at the flames. Snake in the Eye ducked behind his shield. He was small enough for it to cover his whole body, and though two arrowheads smacked through the wood, many missed and none hit him. He saw movement ahead of him, screamed and charged. More arrows, but the archers were panicking. Some reached for axes and spears, some ran, some shot. Snake in the Eye weaved and ducked as he charged blind, his big shield in front of his face. More arrows punched through it but again none touched him. The other northerners, emboldened by Snake in the Eye’s charge, leaped forward too. At five paces the remaining Greeks’ courage broke as one and they ran. Snake in the Eye took a bowman with a looping blow from his sword. The other Vikings came screaming past him as Snake in the Eye put his hands up to the heavens and threw back his head like a farmer welcoming the rain that breaks the drought.

He was delirious with happiness. As he discarded his arrow-heavy shield he looked for more opponents. Women ran across the street behind him – a big group of them doubtless fleeing the Norsemen. Or running to them, thought Snake in the Eye. Sluts. His cock hardened and his head was dizzy as if he had stood up too quickly.

‘I am a man and a mighty one,’ he said. Then laughed again. His voice was hoarse, like a dog speaking. Finally he was becoming a man.

He turned to follow Bollason, and as he did, something seemed to wheel around him. The runes, all in an orbit – eight of them. Not eight – or rather eight not as a number on its own, but as part of something greater. Part of twenty-four. That number seemed very important to him. Twenty-four. Eight and eight and eight.

He ran down the street towards the palace. There he could have his fun. The woman, the one Mauger wanted, was there. And the scholar, the one who had cured his curse. What to do? He had vowed to lead Mauger to the scholar but he had vowed to reward the scholar too. He could do both. Could he fuck the scholar’s wife and then reward him? Snake in the Eye had killed three men that day with sword and spear – not by sorcery. Of course he could. The palace doors were barred and the Varnagians had no siege equipment, so they were left with just beating at them.

The ground shook under Snake in the Eye’s feet. Was it his imagination? An earthquake? Snake in the Eye had heard of them but never experienced one. No, not an earthquake; something that seemed to come from the same place as the silver river. It was a tremor from the dreamworld.

For a moment the street faded away. He was standing on the branch of a huge white tree that stretched above him into a sky of stars. Stars were below him too, shining like ice crystals in the sun, and below them was a well fed by three rivers who were also women. The strangeness of the thought struck him, but when he looked again both ideas – river and woman – were in his head as he saw the shining streams flowing from the roots of the tree. Were they rivers? Or were they three long skiens of cloth that extended from the spindles in the hands of the women who sat at the base of the tree? How could he see them so clearly if they were so far away? How could he not identify them as women or rivers or lengths of cloth if he could see them so clearly?

One of the rivers twisted to flow upwards towards where he was, the glittering waters reaching for him. He put out his hands and the water burst over them, turning his body with the force of its flow.

He understood where he needed to go – to the roots of the tree which stretched up here at the centre of the world. Something was down there for him. He saw a symbol in his mind – the dead god’s necklace, three triangles locked inside each other – and he understood, as he understood the rivers were really women who were really rivers that were skeins that were woman-rivers, that he was one of those triangles. There were not three below him, nor even two. There was one, and it wanted the others to join it.

His head cleared. He was in the street again, people running for their lives, Greeks and Varangians battling. He fell to his knees. Something called to him from beneath the ground. He needed to answer it. He tried to work his fingers into the cobbles, as if he could burrow his way into the earth.

More cries ahead. He followed the sounds. The shouts of anger and the clash of steel upon steel were like sparks of light flashing in the fog, calling him on. A strange oily smell drifted by and something flared in the soupy air, a flash of fire.

The Numera’s gates lay wide open. Vikings huddled either side of the doorway but couldn’t get in. The entrance was very narrow and the Hetaereia within had shields, long spears and a siphon of Greek fire. The burned bodies of four men lay in the short passageway that led into the building. As he watched, flames spewed forth as if from the mouth of a volcano, keeping the Varangians away from the entrance.

Snake in the Eye walked through the gates. He needed his courage, not to charge the door but to go where he needed to go – to the place where the wolf was waiting, the garden by the river where the moon was on the river and the river was a bridge of light. Even as he allowed himself to fall into that place he heard snuffling at the edges of his thoughts, the wolf slavering and creeping through the recesses of his mind.

The Vikings discussed what to do.

‘Starve them out!’

‘Bollason wants this place taken now – he says it’s important.’

‘If we all charge together we can’t
all
get burned.’

‘No, you’re right. Some of us will get shot and others speared.’

‘We need a berserker.’

‘They’d cook him. There’s no chance.’

‘I will go in,’ said Snake in the Eye. The men didn’t even acknowledge he was there.

‘We can get some bowmen.’

‘They’d have to go into the passage to shoot, it’d be suicide.’

‘My name is death!’ Snake in the Eye screamed at the top of his voice.

A wiry Viking waved him away.

‘You’re a boy and a weakling and have proved yourself to be so. The women and kids are plundering the markets, join them and find us some meat. I’ll want a good stew when this is over.’

‘I will take the door.’

‘Go home.’

‘No, let him.’ A big gruff man pointed an axe at Snake in the Eye. ‘I am Arnulf’s kin. This boy wronged us. If he wants to go to his death then we should not stand in his way.’

Another man laughed. ‘Looks like it’s your own meat you’ll be stewing, boy.’

Snake in the Eye ignored him. ‘I am ready.’ He had on his iron breastplate; his sword was in one hand, an axe in the other.
What a warrior I must seem to these men
.

The Vikings were divided into two groups, sheltering from the flame on either side of the passage.

Snake in the Eye stepped forward. By the light of the torch used to ignite the siphon, he saw the blackened faces of two Greek guards peering out at him. The men shouted nothing, issued no threat, but Snake in the Eye knew he would only have a couple more steps before the plunger was depressed on the siphon and a stream of clinging oily flame shot towards him. He was yet to get inside the building but he felt sure the fire would reach him if he took another pace.

There were other flames, smaller lights dancing and flickering on a riverbank wall only he could see. The guttural grunting was in his ears, but he would have time enough at the wall to do what he needed to do and run.

Many little flames flickered, but he only wanted two. He took one and snuffed it out in his fingers. The man on the siphon dropped and the nozzle of the apparatus dipped towards the ground, dripping oil. Snake in the Eye snuffed out another flame. The man with the torch collapsed and the whole apparatus ignited.

Flame erupted with a low roar from the entrance like the belch of a dragon. Snake in the Eye staggered backwards, his hair and eyebrows singeing. Inside the guards screamed and howled, burning. Snake in the Eye strode through the doorway and cut a man down as he came running down the corridor like a fire giant, his head ablaze.

‘I am death!’ he shouted. ‘I am death!’

He stepped around the fallen corpse and charged into the prison, jumping over burning bodies and hacking at those who still lived, men more occupied with the flames that engulfed them than defending themselves. Other guards were arriving from the rest of the prison but the Greeks retreated as fast as they had come before the mob of Varangians pouring in behind Snake in the Eye in a howling rush. The Greeks dived through the inner door and slammed it shut.

‘Am I not a man?’ shouted Snake in the Eye. ‘Am I not a hero?’

He saw so many lights in front of him on the wall, lights for the prisoners, lights for the guards, lights even for a piper and a dancing girl who cowered in the corner.