The Dark Horse (11 page)

6

Dusk on Bird Rock.

All day under Sigurd’s direction the village had dragged long, neat logs up to the top of the hill to the circle of rock fingers. Now night had started to fall, and they would have liked to be safely back in the village. But there was work to be done still; the final episode in Horn’s life.

Their first arrival at the site had not been pleasant.

Horn’s body was not what it had been. The crows had been at their work and had stripped much flesh from the bones, but they had worked messily. The picked and pulled remains of Horn lay both on and around the central table rock of the circle.

In theory the body should have been left until the bones were clean, but in practice that never happened.

So Sigurd directed men twice his age and more to build a funeral pyre around the base of the table rock. It was a massive pyre, but it would take a lot of heat to burn the bones.

It would also take all night.

As night fell a select few of the villagers gathered around the stack of wood and bone.

There was Sigurd, obviously. Sif was there. She was silent. She neither spoke nor even met anyone’s gaze. Gudrun, who had come up at dusk, hovered first near Sigurd, then near Sif, then withdrew to the shadows. She waited while the final preparations were made. There was Herda, to sing a lament, and Longshank, to instruct in the procedure. There were one or two who had been Horn’s favorites.

Finally all was ready.

“Do it, then,” said a weary voice.

“Yes,” said Sigurd, and he shoved a firebrand into the base of the wood.

Before long the fire crackled and flames leaped up into the air around the circle.

Gudrun stepped forward and began to say final words for Horn.

Night fell, and the small group watched the fire, till one by one they fell asleep. In the morning the breeze would blow the ashes into the air, and Horn’s life would have been properly respected.

7

They were strange times, those first days after I became Lawspeaker. The world moved like a dream that I was watching, and not even my own dream. It seemed like someone else’s life that I was stealing a part in.

We sat at the top of the hill and watched Horn’s bones burn.

Longshank fell asleep first. Then Herda.

Sif and I watched each other across the fire, brooding on our own thoughts. Then she fell asleep, too.

I was alone at the top of Bird Rock. All other minds had left me.

And then Mouse appeared.

I wasn’t aware of her coming. But then she was beside me.

“Mouse,” I said, “you shouldn’t be here.”

“Are you going to make me go away, Lawspeaker?” she asked.

I was silent.

“No,” I said after a while. “No, of course not.”

We sat there in silence for a long time. I think I fell asleep. I know I did, because I woke to witness the beginning of the storm.

8

Mouse sat with eyes staring past the bone fire, out to the sea. She alone was awake, all the others having long ago drifted to sleep, even Sigurd.

She looked at her brother, and fear began to grow in her. She did not know why, but something about the firelit scene before her nagged at her memory.

For Mouse, memory was something to be feared, something not to be trusted. She could remember her life with the Storn, and she could remember the time with the wolves, though she had forgotten some. Besides, she didn’t like remembering that time—it only brought pain. The pain that comes with loss.

Of the time that lay before that, she could remember nothing. But now, sitting on the hill, only an eyelid’s distance away from sleep, she recognized something. People huddled outside around a fire. A hillside that overlooked the sea but that rolled away to high plains inland. Away in the woods of the valleys a wolf hunted. Around her feet a shrew scrabbled in the scrubby grass at the base of one of the stone fingers.

Above her head an eagle owl whirled. From its position on high it saw the humans’ fire and came to have a closer look. With its powerful eyesight it saw the movement of the shrew and plummeted groundward. Only at the last second, though, did it see Mouse, hidden and still by the rock. The owl hesitated in its descent, and the shrew disappeared into its hole.

The owl wheeled away and out to sea.

Then there was the sea itself, and the wind, and the sound of horses stamping their feet, pulling at their tethers.

They’re coming.

They’re coming.

Horses? Now Mouse knew she had been dreaming, and indeed as she opened her eyes daybreak had come.

As she shook her head free of sleep the disturbing images from the night would not leave her entirely.

“They’re coming,” she murmured.

“Hmm?” said Sigurd, waking slowly beside her.

But Mouse said nothing because she didn’t know what she meant.

Other people woke now, and stood and stretched. The fire was smoldering gently, but it had done its job—there was no trace of the old Lawspeaker left. All was ashes, which were gradually being swept into the air by the stiffening breeze.

Then Mouse saw the boat.

She pointed down to the shore.

“A merchant ship!” said Herda.

Sigurd looked round. Merchants. He needed to be in the village. He believed Horn had traded poorly with these men. That had to change if they were to survive.

“Quickly,” he said. Without any further ceremony they all left Bird Rock. All except Sif.

9

By the time we made it down from the hill, much of the rest of the Storn had almost completely encircled the trading ship, which lay beached on the shore. The boat was a knorr—one of those small, open-decked seagoing boats favored by merchantmen, for it could hold a big cargo for its size.

I could see its carved prow above the crowd. As I approached I began to realize that something was happening—there were many more people than usual gathered around the boat. And it was too quiet.

I pushed my way through from the back of the circle of people. As I came into the middle I stopped dead.

In front of me were two or three of the traders. I recognized their leader from a previous visit, though I couldn’t remember his name.

“So this is the new Lawspeaker,” he said as I arrived. But I paid him no attention because I saw the body at his feet straightaway.

“They found him,” said Thorbjorn. “They found him in the shallows farther down the coast.”

“He’s come back!” someone else cried hysterically.

“Who?” I asked. “Who is it?”

“We thought he might be one of yours,” said the merchant, and rolled the body over with his foot.

I should have recognized him sooner.

Ragnald. Or what was left of him after two days of bobbing around in the sea. Even though his face was disfigured, his white hair and black palms were unmistakable.

“He’s not yours?” asked the trader.

“No,” I said quietly.

I felt what we were all feeling. It was an omen.

10

“You brought him here. You take him back!”

Sigurd stared straight at the merchant.

His name was Morten, and if he thought his job would be even easier now that the fool called Horn had been replaced by a boy, he was wrong. Sigurd sat opposite Morten, who was flanked by a pair of his men. Around the new Lawspeaker sat his chosen advisers, Thorbjorn, so large and strong, and Herda, so gentle and wise. Sigurd met Morten’s gaze and would not back down, though his heart beat hard in his chest.

“You admit you put this man in the sea,” Morten stated. He was a short, stout man. He didn’t look like a sailor, but he was obviously a very successful trader.

Sigurd nodded. “That much is true.”

“And the sea has brought him back to you. You cannot ignore this fact.”

“The sea brought him back to land—you brought him back to us.”

Again Sigurd stared at the man, until finally Morten’s face broke into a smile.

“Very well,” he laughed. “I can see you are determined. We will take him far out to sea with us when we leave, and finish what you started.”

Sigurd nodded.

“Thank you,” he said.

“And in return for this, I am sure you will want to help us?”

Morten smiled at the boy in front of him.

Sigurd heard some whispering around him. He put up his hand.

“Let us hear what Morten the trader has to say,” he said.

Morten took a long drink from the beer mug in his hand before he spoke.

“Times are hard,” he said. “We have fared badly on our current expedition. Every tribe of every village has traded poorly with us. Crops have failed along the entire length of coast that we have sailed. Our boat is still full of the things we brought to barter with when we set out four months ago. Our coffers are empty of silver.”

“I can imagine,” said Sigurd. “What of it?”

“Lawspeaker, in order that we return home not entirely empty-handed, we simply ask you to consider our wares and the reasonable price we will accept for them. We are sure that this tribe has not sunk as low as others we have seen, which cannot afford a few luxuries for themselves.”

“And what would you have us give you in return?” Sigurd asked. “In return for these luxuries? Our grain is nearly all gone. This year’s crop is dying in the fields. We have no fish to spare; we cannot catch enough to feed ourselves. We have nothing of value to barter with.”

Some of the men muttered behind him.

“It is wrong to speak of the Storn that way,” said Thorbjorn.

Sigurd turned to him. “No. Those days are past. We must face the truth now. We are in trouble, and the truth is that we are so poor that we have nothing to offer Morten and his men. We must face this truth, or we will die before we even know why.”

There was silence.

Morten smiled at Sigurd again, but it was a grim smile this time.

“I can see the new Lawspeaker will give the tribe the best chance of survival he can.”

He stood up.

“Come,” he said to his men. “We go.”

Sigurd rose to face him. “Already? You are still welcome to stay with us for a few days. We do not have much, but we will share our hospitality with you until you are rested. That is the custom.”

“Custom?” said Morten. “The days for custom may be at an end. We have no desire to stay anywhere longer than is necessary for trade.”

Morten turned to leave, then stopped and spoke again.

“I will tell you this. You have impressed me with your courage, Lawspeaker, but I fear that will not be enough to save you.”

“With prudence we will outlive this famine,” said Sigurd, but Morten laughed bitterly.

“I am not speaking of the hunger,” he said. “We have sailed far to the north this time. If you think your life is hard here, it is much worse there. Brochs lie empty. Whole villages are deserted—the people either dead or gone. And not because of the famine.”

“Then why?”

“The Dark Horse,” said Morten quietly.

His words fell like stones into a still pool. And just like the ripples spreading across that pool, the fear spread through them all.

Sigurd turned to Thorbjorn, who dropped his eyes to the floor. Seeing the big man scared unnerved Sigurd badly.

Morten spoke once more.

“We did not see them ourselves, but many places we went had been visited by them. We spoke to one or two people whom they missed. It seems they are suffering, too. The herds they follow are dwindling. They are heading south instead, looking for easier pickings. No one can stop them. My advice to you is to run.”

He turned again.

“Come. To the boat,” he called to his men. He swept out of the broch and down to the shore.

“And where shall we run?” cried Sigurd, following him out of the broch.

Morten answered without even looking around.

“They’re coming,” was all he said. “They’re coming.”