The Islands of the Blessed (30 page)

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.

Thorgil declared she would sink her teeth into the hogboon's throat like Sigmund when the wolf came for him. Jack didn't point out that even Bjorn had been unable to harm the creature, and he'd had a sword.

The moon rose slowly, fading from gold to white. Its chill light flooded the hollow containing the barrow. “It must have been the Man in the Moon,” Jack said.

“What?” Thorgil had drifted asleep.

“That's the kind of god who would ask you to sacrifice your sons,” Jack said. “Nechtan was in the service of Unlife.”

Thorgil shivered.

“That's why the hogboon comes out when the moon is directly overhead. He's still in thrall to it.” Jack twisted himself to look at the standing stone. It was clearly illuminated now, and he wasn't surprised to see a crescent moon crossed by a broken arrow. Thorgil slept again, and Jack, though he fought to stay awake, found his eyes closing involuntarily. The next time they opened, the moon was almost overhead.

“Thorgil!”

She stirred. “I can't understand this drowsiness. I'm so cold! How can I fall asleep?”

“It's the standing stone,” said Jack. “It wants to lull you so you become easy prey. Last time a honeybee woke me. Too bad we don't have one now.”

“The only thing that comes out after dark is bats,” she said.

Jack tried to think of something good, something that might protect them from the helplessness creeping over them. “Remember the Valley of Yggdrassil? Remember Mimir's Well?”

“That
was
nice,” Thorgil said sleepily.

“Honeydew rained out of the upper branches of the Tree and the bees gathered it in midair. The Tree was pure life force, forever being destroyed and forever renewing itself. Valhalla, the Christian Heaven, and the Islands of the Blessed were among its leaves, along with other places we can only guess at. But of one thing I'm sure: The Man in the Moon was a leaf that shriveled up and fell from the Tree.”

“Was he?” said the shield maiden. Her voice was thick.

“Wake up!” Jack kicked her as well as he could with his feet tied together. “He's more dead than the stupid hogboon who worshipped him. He isn't even a wandering spirit. He's a
nothing!
And the hogboon is nothing too. I don't believe in him and neither should you.”

“Oh! What's that?” cried Thorgil.

Something was beginning to take shape in the moonlight. At first it was a blur and then it was a mist. It lengthened out until it was as tall as a man, with gray cobwebs trailing from its body.
I like that, calling me nothing
, said the hogboon.
Who do you think sucked the life out of Bjorn Skull-Splitter and the other morsels Adder-Tooth brought me?

“You only have power over people who believe in you,” said Jack, who desperately hoped this was true. “To the rest of us you're a tiresome old bore.”

You will think otherwise soon. But what have we here?
The creature hovered over Thorgil.
A princess! By the dead moon, Adder-Tooth has outdone himself this time. I may even forgive his debt, though probably not.

“She isn't really a princess,” said Jack.

Oh, but she is
, sighed the creature in a voice like the wind fiddling at a door on an October night.
She is a daughter of the horse lords. Hengist was her ancestor.

“I
told
you,” said Thorgil.

“You aren't helping,” Jack said. He was dismayed that the hogboon knew so much, and it made his hope that the creature was only an illusion waver. “Whatever you think, she isn't the bride you lost.”

Istolis, fairest of the fair
, murmured the creature.
Yet this child of Hengist is also fair, and I have been alone so long.

“It won't work out,” Jack said stubbornly. “You see, Thorgil is a shield maiden dedicated to Odin. She's never going to get married, so you're wasting your time. My suggestion is to hunt up Adder-Tooth and make a meal out of him.”

Food that fights back
, said the hogboon with a hint of humor.
It has been long since I fed upon such courage, but first I must see to my bride.

“You'll have to go through me first,” said Jack. With enormous effort, he wrenched himself up and fell across Thorgil. His head lay at an awkward angle over her shoulder and his back felt horribly exposed. He couldn't see the hogboon.

Foolish boy
, whispered the dust-clogged voice.
You force me to slay you.

Jack waited in an agony of fear. Instinctively, he reached for the life force deep in the earth—and found it just below his heart. A warm sensation, at first no larger than a rose leaf, spread out and brought feeling to his entire body.
It's the rune of protection
, he thought, filled with wonder. It burned anyone who tried to take it by force—but he hadn't tried to take it by force. It lay between him and Thorgil.

Why aren't you dying?
complained the hogboon, and Jack became aware of a hand pressing on his back. He cringed inwardly.
Faugh! I'll deal with you later.
Jack was flung sideways and the warmth vanished. He gasped for breath. It took a moment for his senses to clear, and then he saw the tall, gray hogboon bending over Thorgil and reaching for her throat.

The creature screamed a long, shuddering cry that shook the air. The moon became very bright, but it was a dead light and had no power against the rune. The hogboon began to come apart, peeling away like the filth one finds in an abandoned cellar: cobwebs, dust, corruption. Shreds of it came off and were blown away by a breeze rising in the east. The last fragments swirled around the standing stone and disappeared.

Jack lay stunned on the cold hillside. The damp of early dew soaked into his clothes. Equally stunned, Thorgil stared up at the round, white moon, now turning west to drown itself in the sea. After a while she said, “We really need to find something sharp to cut these beastly ropes.”