The Viking’s Sacrifice (18 page)

Einar watched as Bausi came on, his eyes dark and gleeful, his dark crow’s-wing hair escaping its braids, free ends plastered to his face. Wilda had been free once, a wild thing in the dunes caught and cooped and chained, and he’d meant to free her again. That he’d done, a second thing to say before Odin, and now was the time to pay for all else. He had to fight now to keep her free, to free himself and Sigdir and Gudrun, the whole fjord, and now he had the courage that she’d shown him. Not Odin’s deep thinking, but Thor’s courage in his blood and in his head, as it had always been in his dreams. Now was the time to stop them being dreams, time for the loud courage, the shout and battle cry. Time for blood and bone and steel.

He had no weapon but a rusty knife, against archers and Bausi’s bright sword, but he would fight, die if need be. At least he would die with a blade in his hand and have that chance at Valholl.

Odin, give me wisdom, Thor, give me strength to my arm. Tyr, one-handed god of battles, give me him to face, and a sword in my hand, and I’ll do what I should have done long since. Let me take my wyrd and batter it on his, and see whose thread the Norns have cut shorter. And may Frigg find Wilda a good man, even if he is a Christian.

He looked up at Bausi, no keeping his head down now, not when the fire of it was in his belly. A fire she’d given him just by believing it was there, that Sigdir had flamed by staying, by helping a brother he’d thought lost. No matter how this ended, there was a good chance they’d all end up dead.

Einar didn’t care. Silence had been a cloak he’d worn, a false safety. Now words tumbled like the falls outside the feasting hall that had once been his home. “Ready for the
einvigi
now, Bausi? Blood to bless your wedding?” He stood square and tall, as he had all those years in his dreams. “Or don’t you have the courage you were born with?”

There was no one, nothing, not a man or mountain or snowfall that could move him. He was empty of everything, nothing, less than nothing, and with nothing left to lose—except his one thing to speak before Odin, that he’d saved a girl from dying, had stood and fought when he had no chance to win.

Bausi held up his hand and the archers stopped, though two riders peeled away round Einar, after Wilda. There was nothing he could do to stop them except trust to Odin. He looked sideways at the raven perched on the stone. He would have sworn on his life the bird winked at him.

Bausi jumped down from his horse, threw the reins to one of his men and approached. Another two men fell in behind him, and Sigdir. His face was blank of anything. Waiting, watching.

“Always the simpleton, eh, Toki?” Bausi said. “Why didn’t you keep running, like the coward you are?”

Einar shifted at that, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach, before he stood straighter. “Einar. My name’s Einar. And I both cannot and didn’t need to. Wilda is safe from you.”

“Einar is dead,” Bausi snapped, but his look was sly. Even now talking in riddles and weaves that only he and Einar could understand. “And cannot? So simple of mind you can’t pass a marker stone?”

Einar didn’t answer, only shifted his grip on the paltry knife, rusted and half-blunt. It would be enough for what he wanted.

“You stole Sigdir’s bride, and yet you stand and face us as though you have no shame.”

“I have no shame for Wilda.
Einvigi,
you promised me that.”

Bausi stared at him as though he truly now believed Einar was mad, but at the end he laughed. “
Einvigi,
yes. See, even Odin’s bird comes to watch me kill you.”

The raven flew off in a clatter of wing feathers, but it didn’t go far. As far as Geira, who sat atop a sled, watching them with the same beady eyes as the raven.

Wilda kept low over the horse’s neck as he bolted headlong into the trees. Never much of a rider, she was hard put to stay on his back and avoid low branches. She tried to pull him round, to go back to Einar, but he was stubborn. Other hoofbeats joined his. A quick glance showed two of Bausi’s men coming into the woods behind her. She stopped trying to turn the horse and concentrated on staying on—and alive.

The trees grew thicker, blotting out the weak sun, making a dark tunnel of boughs sifted with snow. The hoofbeats behind grew muffled as they passed from rock to pine needles. There was no way to escape them, not that she could see. They were gaining, Einar’s horse flagging with exhaustion.

She burst out of the trees onto a plateau of pristine snow. Her horse stumbled, almost fell and ran on.
Please Lord, I know I have sinned, lain with a heathen and a man not my husband, but please, let me live. Let us both live, if You would extend Your Grace to those who have yet to see Your light.
She hoped He would listen, and that there were enough Hail Marys in the world to atone for that sin. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to repent this one, to repent for Einar.

They were still gaining—the breath of the lead rider’s horse seemed almost at her back, yet she didn’t dare turn. The plateau ended ahead, but she couldn’t see whether in a slope or a drop.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

This time when the horse stumbled, he didn’t recover but pecked forward, pitching Wilda off, into the snow—and straight into the hands of Bausi’s men. She struggled, slapped, kicked, bit, but they just laughed and one hoisted her onto his horse in front of him.

Bausi’s men marked out the area, built a good fire there on the mountaintop, and the
godi
came forward to speak words, of the god Ullr and rings and the rules. More people came, from the fjord, snug on their sleds, tall on their horses. The heads of each toft and house. Gudrun, wrapped in furs next to Geira, her face pale and pinched. All come to watch Einar’s final fall, bear witness to it. At Bausi’s nod, Sigdir came to call Einar forward. Maybe he thought Einar didn’t have the nerve to come on his own.

“What are you doing?” Sigdir murmured. “You’ve no chance, none, not against him, not as you are, with numb hands and a gimp leg, rags against his good mail, and not even a sword to call your own. Why hasten your own death? Why didn’t you go with her? Maybe you could have escaped.”

“Because fools remain. There is no escape except this. The longer he’s here, the farther away Wilda gets. His men aren’t back yet. They haven’t found her. But I’ve something to do here. Something I should have done long since.”

Sigdir turned away, his face full of grief, his voice gravel-rough with it. “Die? That’s all you will do here. You can’t win and he’ll show no mercy.”

Einar rubbed feeling back into his frozen hands. “It’s not winning I’m after. Wait, watch. And if I do as I hope, then listen. You—and them.” He nodded at the small crowd of fjordsmen that had gathered.

Sigdir turned away. He didn’t take two steps before he turned back, took his sword out and held it toward Einar. “This would have been yours, if—if things had turned out otherwise.”

Einar took it with a solemn nod, hefted the weight of it and hoped he could do the sword justice.

Across the space, Bausi snorted a derisive laugh and eyed the watching men. “A noble gesture, Sigdir. But useless. A coward doesn’t need a sword for his heart to crumble.”

Einar swung the blade, watched the glitter of light along it. A good sword, too. Sigdir stepped back and, for a heartbeat, Einar could see it. Bausi’s net, seidr magic. The shimmer that Geira had spoken of, a black weaving across his face. What Einar was here to destroy, at last.

“I have been a coward, you’re right about that. For too long, I was too afraid. I aim to right that, the long years when I should have acted, or spoken. Look to the Sky-Father one last time, Bausi. Call his name before you die. It will be your last, however this ends.”

Bausi laughed but for once no one joined him. The ring of faces was silent, watchful. The wyrd in the air made it hard to breathe, a thickness that lay heavy on Einar’s skin and made goose bumps prickle at the back of his neck. The Norns stood ready to snip a thread here today. Einar could almost feel them at his shoulder, watching, waiting.

Bausi’s laugh died on his lips and he strode forward, sword ready. “It’s time I saw you safely to Hel, as I should have done a long time since.”

Einar was outmatched, and he knew it. Bausi was bigger, stronger, more practised with his sword. He stepped up to Bausi’s challenge, with only one advantage.

He wasn’t Bausi and he didn’t look to kill a brother by his sword. He wasn’t going for the heart or for the slice of the throat. His aim was for the curse that hung there, and his only way out, its destruction all he could do. No more threads to pull. If he couldn’t get it, then at least the
einvigi
might have given Wilda more time to get away.

Bausi inclined his head and, with that signal, it was started. Without a heartbeat’s pause, he came for Einar, sword scything for the throat, looking to end this quickly.

Einar staggered back, the force of the blow along his arm as he parried shaking his precarious balance. The blows came one after another, no pause for breath until they were both panting like dogs, sending plumes of steam to lick round their beards. Einar’s hand and arm were cut, not badly but enough to seep blood onto his ragged tunic in small blooms of colour, to drip into the snow like tears. His bad knee was the worst, where Bausi planted a well-aimed kick that sent Einar rolling in the snow before he lurched back to his feet. He couldn’t do this—he was only still alive because Bausi was playing with him, he was sure. The twist of a smile was there, half-hidden in the beard. Einar couldn’t do this, but he had to.

Bausi kicked his knee out from under him again and paused for breath, or maybe to gloat. Einar sucked in great lungfuls of frigid air. It would come now, the death stroke, while he lay winded and gritting his teeth against the fire in his leg. Not before a final word, it seemed. Bausi leaned forward and smacked the sword from Einar’s hand with the hilt of his.

Lying at Bausi’s mercy, Einar half expected to hear the crackle of flames, half expected that, if he looked, he’d be in a Saxon town and Wilda would be readying a scramasax to throw, to save him.

But he’d sent her away, and now there was no one to save him. Except himself. Bausi leaned down farther, and the smile stretched. His eyes were darker than night and Einar could smell the seidr, it seemed to him, a thick vicious scent that sent waves of fear through him. The curse slid free to dangle from Bausi’s neck, so close but farther away than stars. If he reached for it, the sword that dangled above him would fall before he could grab it.

It seemed that Bausi grasped his thoughts—maybe more of his seidr magic—and he set the leather bag that held the curse to spinning. So small, that thing that had shaped so many lives. So small and fragile. Just a pull and Einar would have it, could crush it in his hand or throw it to the fire at the edge of the
einvigi
ring.

Bausi’s sword slid over Einar’s skin, a whisper of steel against the throat. He was going to die without a blade in his hand, no chance now of any glory, of speaking to Odin about what he’d done. And
still
he could not speak it—at the first word, that blade would slice his throat, and it would all be for naught.

His handed twitched, thinking that at the least he should try for it, that someone—Sigdir at least—would see that this thing meant more than it appeared. Bausi leaned upon the sword, thin-slicing blood from Einar’s skin. Slow then, he meant this death to be. A murmur began, whispering through the crowd, through those born here in the fjord. Not Bausi’s paid men, who had spent their lives raiding and plundering, who knew death and blood as Einar knew silence.

Sudden sound made Bausi jerk his face away. The jingle of mail, the crunch of feet in snow, the snort of a horse. A woman’s voice crying “Einar!”

A voice Einar knew. Wilda.

It took Wilda everything she had not to run, to grab Bausi and pull him from Einar. His men behind her muttered among themselves at the scene before them, their grip on her loosened now. Einar lying on his back, blood blooming along his tunic, Bausi kneeling over him.

The ring of faces only watched. None spoke out. There’s poison in this village, Bebba had said once, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Poison enough that even when they held it a dishonour, that thing they held so dearly, none would stand against Bausi.

Wilda wasn’t so constrained. “Einar!”

Bausi turned to her with his twisted grin. She took half a step back, and the hands of his men gripped her more firmly again. There was something wrong with his eyes—they had no whites to them, were nothing now but blackness. The whole space felt wrong, felt…other. She groped for her crucifix, for a prayer to help her. Her hand found Einar’s amulet and something seeped into her. Maybe his faith in the god whose hammer this was. It stilled her mind, and gave her what she sought, her own faith.

O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. ’Stablish my heart in Your will. Grant me true repentance for my sins; right faith and true charity, patience in adversity and moderation in prosperity. Help me and all my friends and kinsmen, all who desire and trust in my prayers. Show mercy to all who have done me good and shown me the knowledge of good, and grant everlasting forgiveness to all who have spoken or thought evil against me. To You, my God, and to all Your holy ones, be praise and glory forever for all the benefits You have given me, and for all Your mercies to me, a sinner. For Your name’s sake. Amen.

A jerk of Bausi’s head, a growled-out word, and men stepped out from the ring around Einar. Armoured men, Bausi’s men, with swords that shone. Sigdir moved too, came to stand with her. When he drew his scramasax, the crowd held its breath. Into that soft silence of blood waiting to be drawn came a scream, a bone-jolting, heart-racing scream that made Wilda want to run as if the hounds of hell themselves chased her.

Einar had hold of something that dangled from Bausi’s neck, but the touch of it seemed to burn him where he lay. Bausi, jerked back from his wary watching of Sigdir, sliced with his sword, but the point found only snow.