Black Monastery (6 page)

They had heard of the earl’s wergild soon enough at a trading camp along the Frisian coast; word had spread that quickly. Then all the men realized what Asgrim had done that night, although they had already whispered of it among themselves. No one had ever heard of such a wergild before: one hundred pieces of silver. No man could pay such a price, not even Asgrim Wood-Nose. No. He would never find so much plunder, not if he raided every single village, port, and Christian monastery in the world. Asgrim Wood-Nose would never go home again, and he would always have a price on his head. Eventually, it would catch up to him.

Koll and Mar stood nearby, arguing about a book they held between them. They could sell the books, Harald knew, Franks paid good silver for useless junk like this, but even if they sold all of the books they’d still only make a handful of silver. Not enough, never enough. Harald shook his head and walked out of the library, letting the two men argue over scraps of paper that neither could read.

Sunlight poured through the slit windows of the monastery, casting pools of light across the darkened hallway. As Harald walked and pondered, he considered his options. He was the son of a minor landowner, a poor farmer with progressively weaker fields. He would never, not ever be able to afford his own ship. And in all the time he had sailed with Asgrim, not once had the ugly bastard ever even given him a silver armband to reward his impressive loyalty or his considerable prowess in battle.

Asgrim was jealous of him, Harald knew. He was a better man than that ugly freak. The others must see it, as well. This is why he always gave Harald the shit jobs and let that bastard Gorm give the orders. Asgrim hated Harald because he knew Harald would be a better captain than he would ever be. If only Harald had the chance to prove this. Harald snorted and kicked the severed head of a monk down the hallway, watching it bounce and thud off the walls before rolling to a stop.

They were only there, so far south, because of the stupid whore. Not that Harald blamed Asgrim for what he had done. Any other man would have done the same. But then, he also didn’t really blame her for spreading her legs for another man. What woman would choose to lie with that ugly rot-nosed freak? She probably would have fucked Harald, too. He snorted at the thought of having Wood-Nose’s wife. Shame
that
hadn’t happened; she had been a rare beauty.

Still, it wasn’t fair that they all had to suffer because one man couldn’t satisfy his woman. Worse, they shouldn’t be here in this gods-cursed shithole. They needed to get out before it was too late. Any sane man could see that. But that stupid bastard wouldn’t give up his useless search for treasure that didn’t exist. He would drag them all down with him.

Unless someone else took charge.

But they had sworn oaths. Men didn’t break oaths. No man was more dishonorable than an oath-breaker. Any man who broke an oath would go to Niflheim when he died, not Valhalla.

But hadn’t Asgrim also sworn an oath to the earl? Didn’t killing the man’s son also make him an oath-breaker? It did. That’s why the gods had turned away from him. That’s why his luck had turned so bad. Asgrim Wood-Nose? No. Asgrim Oath-breaker. Asgrim Ill-luck. Realization dawned on Harald that his future was changing. They couldn’t be oath-breakers if Asgrim was already an oath-breaker. It was so simple once he realized it. The gods were giving him an opportunity. All he had to do was take it.

He walked out of the main complex and stepped out into the sunlight, feeling better for being away from inside that damned unholy stone building. He was onto something, he was certain of that. The men were frightened. And well they should be; spirits haunted this place. They didn’t want to stay here, but that ugly bastard forced them to. The others must also be feeling the same way Harald was. There was no plunder, nothing worth coming all this way.
But
—they could raid the village on the other side of the island. At least then, they would have women. Butthole that he was, the captain never let them raid villages or take slaves. He was soft. Despite his ugly looks, he was soft and weak. That’s why his own wife had betrayed him. He probably couldn’t get it up anyway.

His thoughts tumbled about inside his head as he wandered without purpose. He was vaguely aware that he had walked in the direction of the piggery. The animals had all been slaughtered by the monks, their carcasses left to rot where they had been killed. He shook his head in disgust. Who killed pigs just to kill pigs? Some of the men were searching the piggery. Others rooted about the hay. Harald leaned against a rickety wooden fence and absentmindedly watched them.

Who would still be loyal to Asgrim? Who had yet to come to the same realization he had? He listed the most obvious in his head: Gorm, Steiner, Gils, Snorri, and at least ten more. The most obvious of all though was Asgrim’s freak brother. That giant idiot would be the greatest danger. He may have been stupid, but Bjorn was also huge, strong, and a better fighter than any other man present. Harald snorted. Well, maybe not a
better
fighter, but he was bigger and stronger.

A plan began to form in his mind. They were far from home, they couldn’t go back, and the captain’s luck had turned bad. There was no way he would ever raise the earl’s wergild. Even worse, the place was haunted, and if they stayed, they might all die there. On the other hand, the longer they stayed and found nothing, the more likely it would become that the others would begin to see this, as well. In time, they would all come to the same conclusion Harald had; they would have to, also. And Harald could ease them along that path, subtly, safely, until enough of them recognized the truth.

Without Asgrim, they could sail home again. But first, they could make a series of small raids along the coast, make some profit, earn some fame, and get the lads some women. That’ll make ’em happy.

Harald smirked, congratulating himself on starting to think like the leader he knew he was. Like a captain.

* * *

Bjorn was right. An evil presence
did
lurk at the bottom of the stairs. Asgrim could feel it from where he stood at the top, holding a lit torch. Behind him, Bjorn and four others waited: Gorm Louse-Beard and three of the steadier men. They carried picks, hammers, and shovels they had found in one of the workshops.

Never in his life had Asgrim felt anything like this. The air was cold and wet, almost misty. Even the stairs were wet. Asgrim bent down and ran his finger in the water on the stone stairs, then tasted it. Salt. Salt water slicked the stairs.

How was that possible?

And then he saw something else on the stairs, vegetation of some type. He stared at it in confusion for several moments, then bent down and picked it up, holding it close to his eye.

Seaweed?

He let it fall from his fingers and hesitated, glaring at the darkness below. He knew he couldn’t keep standing there, too terrified to move. It wasn’t manly. Tremors ran down his body, and he actually shivered. He wanted to run away, to bolt in fear. Instead, he took a tentative step forward, then another. Slowly, he descended the stone stairs, his pulse racing like the wind in a storm. The others followed.

A large chamber, perhaps twenty ells long by ten wide, met them at the bottom of the stairs. Numerous carved stone arches, each thicker than a man and linked by countless spiderwebs, held up the chamber’s high curved ceiling. All along the arches, the monks had carved scores of their crosses and more of their mysterious runes. Recesses, each holding a desiccated skeleton, had been set into the brick walls all along the length of the tomb. Why have a cemetery
and
a tomb, Asgrim wondered. Was this place only for their dead leaders?

The otherworldly presence they had felt from above was unmistakably stronger down there. Its cloying presence threatened to suffocate Asgrim and to crush his faltering courage, yet somehow, he forced himself to move forward. The flames from his torch dampened, as if the fire had to struggle to survive. The smell of the ocean was overwhelming now, and just for a moment, Asgrim thought he heard the crashing of waves. The air he breathed was thick with moisture; the stones of the chamber were soaked, and puddles splashed beneath their boots. Behind him, Gorm cursed, and then whispered a prayer to Odin.

Swinging the faltering torch from side to side, Asgrim stepped farther into the crypt, and a crypt it was. This was, without a doubt, the monastery’s inner sanctum, its most sacred place. At least it should have been, but there was nothing holy there.

Asgrim’s vision focused until it was tunnel-like. At the far end of the crypt, a figure stood watching them. Asgrim’s heart throbbed in warning, and he almost dropped his torch before he realized it was only a statue carved in the likeness of a monk. Just beside the statue was an open stone coffin. The stone lid had been carefully placed on the floor. As Asgrim drew closer, he expected to see a corpse within it, but it was empty.

The statue’s face had been carved with a beatific smile, as if he saw secrets others could not. This man must have been important to the monks to have earned a place of honor beneath their monastery. But if so, where was the corpse now? Had it awoken somehow? Had it climbed from its stone coffin and walked away as an undead spirit, a Christian
draugr
? Only scraps of rotted cloth and dust remained.

“Gods help us,” muttered Gorm. “What’s wrong with this place? I feel… I—”

“We all feel it,” said Bjorn as he stepped closer to Asgrim and peered into the empty coffin.

Asgrim walked past the coffin and examined the stone wall behind it, looking for signs of loose stones or perhaps a hiding place, but he found nothing.

“There’s something here,” said Bjorn from behind him.

Turning, Asgrim saw that his brother had drawn his knife and was using it to poke at the rags within the coffin. Asgrim’s fear spiked abruptly, and he was about to lash out at his brother when Bjorn suddenly thrust his hand into the coffin and picked up something. He held a small fragment of bone in front of his eyes.

“Brother…” said Asgrim.

“It’s nothing,” answered Bjorn, staring intently at the fragment. “Just a piece of bone. Old, very old.”

Asgrim stared, mesmerized at the bone in his brother’s hand. It was yellow with age and was perhaps just a piece of finger, maybe a knuckle-bone. Asgrim’s skin felt clammy, and he found himself gasping for air. He lurched forward, gripped his brother’s large forearm, and felt a shock pass through him. Just for a moment, in place of his brother, Asgrim saw a monster, a green-skinned aquatic thing with an impossibly elongated and hairless skull. Its flesh pebbled, and its giant eyes were all black, like a shark’s. Then the vision was gone. Bjorn stared at him in confusion.

“Put… put it back,” Asgrim croaked.

Bjorn paused, staring at the fragment in his fingers. His hand shook.

“Now!” ordered Asgrim.

Bjorn, startled at his brother’s voice, seemed to see him for the first time and nodded. He tossed the bone fragment back into the coffin, where it struck with a thud that resonated throughout the chamber, as if the bone weighed far more than it should have.

Panting heavily, Asgrim wiped his palms across his sweaty face. He shook his head. “There’s nothing here. Let’s go.”

He turned and walked toward the stairs, resisting the urge to run. At the bottom of the stairs, he waited for the others, trying to act like a leader. The other men must have shared his terror, though, because they practically ran over themselves going up the stairs. Only Bjorn hesitated, still at the rear of the crypt, still staring into the coffin.

“Bjorn!” Asgrim raised his voice.

His brother turned away from the coffin and stormed past Asgrim, heading up the stairs. Asgrim took the stairs three at a time and would have run had it not been unmanly.

* * *

It stood in the darkened woods, staring at its grey hands in contempt and wonder. Scornful of the weakness within these beings, it still marveled at the potential for destruction and carnage. Already, the rot was starting as the body it wore began to die. It had to be careful this time, or else it might become trapped again, existing as nothing more than a shade within the bones, powerless without physical contact. And even this body, a warrior’s body—stronger than the others had been—was still not going to last very long, not as long as the monk had. But until then, at least it wore flesh again, flesh that allowed it to move and act, to rend and tear. And act it would. These lesser beings would suffer greatly for its forced inaction.

It sensed life—and wished to crush the offensive foulness of it. An entire village of souls to devour stood before it. A rictus of pleasure, more snarl than smile, spread across its grey face.

So long, it had been locked away for too long. Strong though he had been, Philibert had died too soon, without enough warning. And it had happened while it had been unaware, while its consciousness had been elsewhere, sleeping. Existing in this realm required constant effort and was a never-ending struggle to remain. It didn’t belong here, so this reality fought it and tried to push it away. Had it been aware Philibert was that close to death, it would have taken another body—
before
they locked away the rotting corpse within that damned crypt. Even then, when it had awakened and found its servant dead, it still should have been able to escape the tomb, to find another human shell to possess. But the other monks had loved Philibert and had, of all things, believed him to be holy. So they had engraved his coffin with silver etchings—not much silver because they were poor, but just enough to bar its passage in its weakened state. So it had been trapped, just as surely as if it had been locked away within a silver jar. It had been all the monk’s fault. The mortal should have been stronger, strong enough to last years. Instead, he had died in less than a single year.

Trapped within the crypt, its awareness drifted in and out, like the waves. Then, while it slept, through some happy chance, those fools had finally released it. They opened the coffin and touched the bones, awakening a portion of it and absorbing some of its influence—not much, just the most infinitesimal portion of it, but far more than enough to poison their souls, to turn them away from their god. Without even being fully awake and aware, it had taken them all, driving them to acts of depravity and joy. And as the priests died, it started to wake, convalescing into the body of their leader, the head abbot. And when a stronger body of the warrior appeared, it abandoned the abbot.