Viking Gold (2 page)

Skoggcat
stopped beside the hawthorn bush, about a man’s length from Redknee, and
sniffed the air. A smile spread across his face.

Redknee looked down at his
breeches. Curdled lumps of sick still clung to the damp leather.
Damn.
He tried to scramble to his feet. But Skoggcat was already under the branches,
his claw-like hands grabbing at Redknee’s ankles, dragging him out. Redknee
wriggled and kicked as hard as he could, aiming for Skoggcat’s hard-set eyes
and mouth. But it was no good, Skoggcat was too strong.

As soon as they were in the
open Skoggcat swung his iron ball at Redknee’s head. Redknee ducked, raised his
arm and the chain twisted round his wrist. Ignoring the vice-like pain of the
links biting into his flesh, he tugged hard, pulling an already over extended
Skoggcat off his feet. Locked in battle, the pair tumbled down a fern covered
slope.

They came to a stop with
Redknee on his back. Skoggcat fought like the wildcat he mimicked, scratching
at Redknee’s face and baring sharpened teeth. Struggling to hold him off,
Redknee tried to use the iron ball still attached to his wrist to smash
Skoggcat’s nose. But Skoggcat was as agile as he was strong, dodging every blow
with a gleeful sneer.

Redknee changed tack. Rather
than trying to fight him off, he seized Skoggcat’s clawed hands and held them.
Confusion showed in Skoggcat’s eyes as he tried to twist free. But Redknee held
tight, got his foot under Skoggcat’s belly and pushed – sending the screaming
youth flying over his head. Seizing the advantage, Redknee leapt to his feet
and drew his eating knife.

“Redknee!”

He turned to see the first
warrior hoisting Sinead onto his grey stallion.

Turning
from Skoggcat, Redknee scrambled up the embankment and ran headlong at the big
warrior. But the warrior just laughed as he turned his stallion and galloped
into the forest. Skoggcat jumped up behind one of the other riders and stole a
lift. The men were gone just as quickly as they had arrived.

Redknee kept up his pursuit
until he could no longer make out the shadows of the trees. Exhausted, he
slumped to the ground. Sinead was gone and he was lost.

Redknee
forced himself on, crashing into outstretched branches, tripping on exposed
roots. He strained to see in the shadowy, moonlit darkness of the night. There
had been no sign of Sinead’s abductors since they galloped off that afternoon.
Face it, he thought, he was never going to catch them. And even if he did,
what, exactly, was he going to do? Attack five warriors with his eating knife?

He rubbed his elbow. He was
going to have a bruise the size of an apple. The villagers might as well call
him Red-arm as Redknee, for all the difference it made. He was too clumsy to be
a warrior. Too clumsy for anything but—

A cry pierced the night.

Redknee’s hand shot to his
knife. Wolves. He stopped and listened. The animal’s mate would reply,
betraying their location. He waited, but there was no response. Not wolves, he
thought. One wolf. A lone hunter. He drew his knife. Wolves, even a lone one,
demanded respect. Each step he took seemed to echo through the forest, so he
moved forward on tiptoe, every muscle in his body taut as he eased, quiet as he
could, through the maze of branches. The wolf was near, but how near?

He knew he should avoid the
wolf – his eye was on bigger game tonight. But then, to be able to wear a wolf
pelt – that would show Harold the bloody Thin.
Harold the Bleeding Scared
,
more like.

Thorns tore at his arms; his legs
ached from keeping on tiptoe. One wrong move would expose him. Eventually he
slumped, exhausted, onto a fallen log. And that was when he heard it.

A soft mewling.

He
peered through the undergrowth, but all he saw was a dark knot of leaves and twigs.
He heard the mewling again; this time he crept towards its source. The earth
became soft, like butter, and he trod carefully. There must be water nearby.

A fresh hoof print then another,
glistened in the sludge. His first piece of luck! Heart racing, and forgetting
his fear of the wolf, he followed the horse trail past a tightly packed copse
of ash and elder. Suddenly, the ground slid away and he toppled backwards, arms
flailing. He tumbled down a mossy slope, ripping his tunic and dropping his knife
as he clutched uselessly at the slick earth.

Something large and hard
stopped his fall. Unable to get up, he lay on the ground, blood trickling
across his face. He grimaced as the metallic taste reached his mouth. He would
probably die here, his broken body picked clean by scavengers. Was this how it
had felt for his father? Death. Cold, lonely, slow…

They said his father had
surrendered. A coward’s death. Well, Redknee was not a coward. At least he had
the satisfaction of knowing he had died trying to save his friend. Of running
into battle, not away from it. Would that be enough to get him to
Valhalla
, he
wondered, the final resting place of the great warriors?

A fine mist began to settle
over him. He smiled. The village had been waiting for rain now for weeks. He
inhaled the vapour and closed his eyes …

The
mewling was much closer now. Right beside him, in fact. Redknee opened his
eyes. How long had he been asleep? He looked about. It was still dark. Pain
shuddered through him.  A welcome pain. He was alive.

As he groped for the rock
that had broken his fall, his fingers curled round a sharp object. His eating
knife. He slid the knife into his belt, and, summoning all his energy, pulled
himself to his feet. He leaned on the stone for a long while, absorbing its
strength.

Then Redknee saw him.
Cowering in the hollow trunk of an old pine tree was a tiny wolf cub. Its white
fur stuck out at odd angles and its nose bore a round grey mark the size of the
Arab coins his uncle kept locked in a chest. Redknee daren’t move closer. The
cub’s mother would be nearby. A she-wolf never left her young for long.

Then he heard it. A ragged
howl. Like the rush of wind through a cave.

He spun round, bracing
himself for the attack. Long white teeth glimmered against black gums. Redknee
spread his arms wide. He’d heard wolves could be scared off if you made
yourself look bigger. But the she-wolf kept coming. She was almost on him now,
growling and pawing the ground, a demon of spit and fangs and blood. A gash the
length of a man’s forearm cleaved her right haunch. Redknee winced. This was
not her first fight of the day either. He edged backwards. She tried to leap at
him, but her legs quivered and it was more of a shuffle. A moment later she
collapsed to the ground.

The pup crawled from its lair
and nudged its mother’s nose with its head. A triangle of pink tongue darted
over the pup’s ears, but the she-wolf was beaten. Her eyes lolled with
exhaustion and her head slumped onto her paws.

As the she-wolf took her
last, rasping breath, she looked up at Redknee, with, he imagined, relief in
her eyes. And he knew what he should do. He edged over to the pup, who was now
trying to wake its mother by patting her face with its paw, and gently scooped
it up. Pale amber eyes ringed with black stared warily at Redknee.

“Hey, little one,” Redknee
said, stroking the pup behind its ears. The pup tried to wriggle free. Redknee
fished a scrap of bread from his belt-pouch and held it out. After a moment’s
pause, the pup gobbled it down greedily.

“You’re all alone in the
world now. I know what that feels like. But don’t worry, I’ll look after you.
We can be a team.”

The pup eyed Redknee for a
moment then began licking his face. “Ergh,” Redknee said, holding the pup at
arm’s length. “I’ll have to teach you to stop that if you’re ever going to make
a fierce hunting dog.”

He
tucked the pup into his tunic and trudged through the wet mud until he came to
a wide clearing. A torch flickered a short distance off. He ducked down. The
fiery image danced across the ground. He’d reached the banks of a mountain lake
– one he didn’t recognise. More lights joined the first – their reflections
shimmering on the water.

He crept through the reeds
until he was within hearing distance. Fifteen or so men lounged by a campfire,
drinking and cutting strips off a deer carcass they’d suspended over the fire
on a stout branch. Redknee’s mouth watered. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
The men were loud and drunk. Two were arguing over a game of dice. A few took
turns goading a brown bear they had tethered to a tree stump. The poor beast
was so tired it hardly responded to their bullying.

Redknee crouched in the
shadows and looked for Sinead. A group of horses stood to one side. Redknee
recognised the grey stallion. Beside the horses was a wooden cage. Their
leader, the big warrior with the bad eye, stalked over to the cage, pulled out
a girl and dragged her towards the campfire. Redknee wasn’t sure it was Sinead
until he heard her squawking on in her usual way. Like a seagull arguing with
an ox. Pointless and annoying.

“Let me go, you big oaf,” she
said.

“Wish granted,” he said,
pushing her in front of the fire.

The men looked up from their
meal. A raven-haired youth in a fine chainmail coat addressed the big warrior.
“Ragnar,” he asked, “when do we attack Sven’s village?”

Ragnar smirked. “First light,
son. If we can get this girl to talk. She knows where it is. I know it. But she
says nothing.”

The youth jumped up, grabbed
Sinead’s hand and thrust it towards the flames. “Tell us the way to Sven
Kodranson’s village,” he demanded.

Sinead jerked her head back
and spat in his eye.

“You little—” The youth
brought his palm across her face, knocking her to the ground.

At the sound of the slap,
every muscle in Redknee’s body tensed.

Ragnar sighed. “Calm down,
Mord. You must never let a woman rile you. Besides, the point is to make her
talk, not shut her up forever. Now put her back in the cage until she comes
round.”

Sulking, Mord lifted Sinead’s
limp body, dropped her inside the cage, bound the door shut and rejoined his
father by the fire. The rest of the men were happily engrossed in their food
and in taunting the poor bear. None, it seemed, were brave enough to tease Mord
over Sinead’s outburst. There was no sign of Skoggcat. Staying low in the
undergrowth, Redknee edged closer.

“Can’t wait to see Sven
again,” Ragnar said as Mord sat beside him on an upturned log. “Bet he’ll
squeal like a pig when I run him through. Just like his brother did.” Laughing,
he drew his knife and jabbed the bear in the gut. The animal moaned. Ragnar’s
eyes lit up.

“My spies have confirmed Sven
still has his brother’s book,” said Mord, ignoring his father’s jest with the
bear.

“What would I do without you,
Mord? You know everyone’s secrets.”

A smile flashed across the
young man’s face, then vanished. “They also tell me Sven has finished his
longship,” he said.

“Then this is the perfect
time to strike. Nothing like taking advantage of someone else’s hard work, eh?”
Ragnar said. “And it is high time I studied the book for myself – Sven has
denied me it long enough. Now, have you seen your useless freak of a brother?”

Mord shook his head. “What
about the boy? The one who was with the girl.”

“What about him?” Ragnar frowned.
“He’s nothing. We lost him ages ago.” Ragnar studied his son for a moment, then
said, “You worry too much. Relax. We’ll find Sven’s village soon enough.”
Ragnar slapped Mord on the back and turned to talk with his men, who were
rowdily debating whether Thor, the god of thunder, or Odin, the god of war,
would win in a fight.

Mord moved to the edge of the
camp, away from the men. He took a piece of ivory from his pocket and began
working it with his knife. 

The pup squirmed inside
Redknee’s tunic, Redknee pushed him down, out of sight, his mind spinning as he
closed the distance to the cage. He forgot the pain in his arm, the pounding in
his head. He’d heard of Ragnar. Uncle Sven had spoken of him. But always in
hushed tones. For it was Ragnar who had killed Redknee’s father. Murdered him.

The
cage was near where Mord worked on his carving. But the night was dark and he
didn’t see Redknee crawl up behind Sinead, reach through the bars and tap her
on the shoulder.

No movement. Nothing. He
tried again, this time tugging the ends of her long hair. She opened her eyes
slowly, saw him, and winked.

Redknee held his fingers to
his lips. “Lie still. Don’t draw attention.” He used his knife to start sawing
the rope holding the cage door closed. From the corner of his eye, he saw one
of Ragnar’s men approach carrying a bucket.

“Hurry!” Sinead whispered.

“I’m going as fast as I can.”
Ragnar had used heavy flax and Redknee felt his knife buckle.

Ragnar’s man reached the far
side of the cage. Redknee hid in the shadows as the man tossed a bucketful of
lake water over Sinead and turned to go. Sinead let out a tiny gasp as the cold
water hit her skin.