The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of Yondersaay (30 page)

On the beach in front of the funeral pyre, beneath the gaze of the dragon’s prow, was a wooden platform. Square in the middle, making it sag, was a grand golden throne. It had a sumptuous, purple velvet
downdle
on the seat. The feet of the throne curved into claws as they dug into the planks, and the legs and arms were encrusted with jewels. Evidently, a porta-throne was not grand enough for this particular occasion.

The crowd hushed on their benches and chairs as a group of heavily armed and very tough-looking Vikings—Hamish Hjorvarth and two of the five twins—stood aside to reveal Silas Scathe. The effect was somewhat diminished by the fact that, in the minutes beforehand, Scathe was plainly seen checking his appearance in various mirrors and frantically applying pomade to some stray hairs. The crowd, however, had been coached by Asgrim and Isdrab. They
oohed
and
ahed
as the jarl ascended the platform.

Behind another group of burly men, much more successfully hidden from the crowd and tied up securely but attempting to get away nonetheless, were a defiant, red-haired, puffy-coated girl and a resistant great-great-great-grandmother.

The jarl sauntered to the golden throne in the middle of the platform. Spinning himself around to face the crowd, allowing his flouncy jewel-encrusted robes to billow out dramatically, he slowly, regally, sat down.

Almost immediately, he stood up again. “Welcome to Yondersaay’s Annual Great Sacrificial Yuletide Festival! This year, we have an added reason to celebrate our annual feast. We have a real, live sacrifice to look forward to as part of the festivities. With your help, wonderful Yondersaanians, I, Jarl Silas Scathe, at last, after many years of constant, literally twenty-four-seven, full-on, unending effort, have trapped the insidious, the evil, the conniving. Red King of Denmark!”

The crowd whooped and applauded.

“You are all aware, of course, of the legend of the Red King of Denmark—that one day this arrogant young sovereign would come to the island to take Odin’s treasure as his own—”

A decaying old man at the front put up his hand. “That’s not the version I’m familiar with, your jarlship,” the old man said in a surprisingly loud voice. “I was under the impression he was supposed to be a rather decent sort—”

Two of the five twins, in full Viking combat gear now, appeared, lightning-quick, one on either side of the old man. The one on the left discreetly pressed a blade into the old man’s side. The one on the right glared menacingly at him.

The jarl stopped and looked at the old man. “Are you sure?” he beseeched in a sickly sweet voice. “Is that really what you remember?”

“Em, no! Now that I think about it, no,” the old man said.

“Indeed!” the jarl continued. He gestured to the rest of his men who slowly and subtly dispersed themselves within the crowd, ready to intimidate should the jarl be challenged again. “As we all know, the island has been bereft of Odin’s benevolent presence for many a year. It is my belief that when we sacrifice the Red King tonight, the gods will be appeased and Odin will return.” Scathe dropped his voice to a whisper and mumbled, “We have the tiny formality of establishing the boy’s identity.” Scathe brought his voice back to full volume. “Then he will be sacrificed by the final rays of the sun!”

The jarl looked into the crowd. He knew that they loved a good sacrifice, but he wanted to make very sure they were all on his side. “But don’t take my word for it. Ladies and gentlemen, this afternoon we welcome Yondersaay’s most revered inhabitant, the amanuensis of the gods, the interpreter of divine will, the one, the only …
oracle
!

The crowd went bananas. They hushed as the oracle approached the platform. In her ceremonial garbs, she looked quite imposing. She had clearly combed her hair for the occasion. She hadn’t washed it, mind, but it wasn’t sticking out in matted clumps. And with the breeze traveling in a westerly direction, and the crowd being east of her, they didn’t get the full force of the smell. The fact that she mumbled constantly to herself only added to her mystique. The intermittent picking of things off her scalp and flicking them off—not so much.

Once she was on the platform, Jarl Scathe lifted the oracle’s right arm into the air and paraded her around the stage so that all gathered could get a good look at her. It was clear to Granny and Dani that the poor woman was trying very hard to be cool. She seemed to be making an attempt at haughty and uninterested, but that all fell apart when the crowds got to their feet to welcome her with applause—she guffawed so loudly in delight at all the attention that for a moment it looked like she was having a seizure. The crowd recoiled in horror. She got hold of her senses, just in time, pointed to the heavens, and muttered things like “… the gods … communing … messages … I am vessel …” and other incoherent rubbish.

The jarl continued. “Our sacred oracle will perform the ancient rites; she will commune with the Viking gods, and they will tell her two things.” The jarl raised his robed arms majestically as he spoke. “One: is the boy who roams among us the Red King, the true Boy King of Denmark?” Scathe’s voice crescendoed. “And two: will sacrificing him return our beloved Odin to our midst?”

The crowd erupted into whoops and cheers and drank heartily of their mead.

“You may have noticed,” the jarl said more softly, lowering his arms, “that the copper-haired, silver-eyed boy of the legends is not actually, at this moment in time, just right at the present minute, here on the stage. He is literally right here though. He is among us. And he will come forward in due course.”

The people looked about them trying to spot the Red King in the crowd.

“Fear not. His presence is not required at this juncture. We are here to perform the identification rites, and the oracle has the power and the connection with the gods to summon the information forth. With or without the ginger brat.”

The oracle stepped to the front of the stage as the crowd applauded. First, she made a big show with a stick-type thing with feathers on the end, mumbling to herself the entire time. She motioned for a large, flat rock to be positioned in front of her and placed lots of implements, including stones and bones of various shapes and sizes, in a line beside it.

She motioned for a big bucket to be brought to the stage. The oracle ceremoniously lowered the top of the bucket so that the gathered masses could see that inside were her pre-sacrificed bloody guts. This got a good reaction. She paused to let the picture sink in.

The oracle reached both arms deep into the bucket. She paused and muttered. Alas, she paused just that wee bit too long—strands of her combed hair came loose and tumbled into the bucket. The crowd let out a collective “Eww.” Unperturbed, the oracle lifted her immersed arms high above her head. Her hair flicked back at the same time and splattered blood and guts all over everyone in the front row. She held her arms aloft—bloody to her elbows—and in her hands, she clutched an oozing mixture of innards. She splattered the entrails across the flat surface of the rock and bent to examine them.

She looked up at the crowd. And back at the entrails. Up at the crowd. Back at the entrails. She turned her clotted, moldy head to the heavens. And back to the entrails. She fishugled them about a bit. And finally, she gazed unseeing ahead of her.

Those in the front rows could see that she was now deep in a trance. The colored bits of her eyes were gone. All the while, her head pivoted, side to side. She started to mumble. The mumbles got louder. And if possible, even more incoherent. The volume rose and rose and rose.

The crowd was silent. The islanders leaned forward as much as they could to see as much as they could see.

At last, the oracle let out a monstrous keening. “Eeeeaahaaaaaa!” The crowd jumped back, startled out of their senses. She screeched again, this time throwing her body behind the sound, and she flounced forward and sprawled onto the platform. Seemingly out of control, her body shook and jittered and flailed about. Suddenly she stopped moving.

“Copper hair, eyes of an aged gray,” she said in a deathly monotone.

“The sign of the Red King, Boy King,

“Am I to say?

“Yes, I am, I have an inkling,

“To sacrifice, tonight, on the Yuletide fire,

“The Boy King bound and tied on the pyre.

“Denmark the Red.

“For Odin to return, may he be dead.”

With that final pronouncement, the oracle heaved with exhaustion onto the stage.

“What does that even mean?” Dani shouted up to the stage. “It doesn’t mean anything! You could go either way with that! It doesn’t mean he’s the Boy K—!” Hamish came forward and put a massive hand over Dani’s mouth, muffling her words.

“That is clear enough for me!” Scathe announced to the crowd. “The Boy King of Denmark will be sacrificed to the Viking gods on this pyre in this harbor at sundown!”

The crowd roared so clamorously that the benches reverberated from the noise. The oracle was helped to her feet. She stepped forward and took a bow. Several bows in fact. Asgrim had to come and lead her off the stage by her elbow. She reappeared within seconds with a big platter of sandwiches and started handing them out to those in the front row. An elderly gentleman passed out as she thrust a cheese-and-egg flatbread in his face with blood dripping from her fingers.

“Prepare the girl and the granny for their sacrifice,” Scathe announced to the men.

“
What
?” Dani said.

Scathe looked down his nose at Dani and Granny. “Like I said on the mountain, I don’t know if you were listening, but I will repeat myself just this once. What I said was, I said something along the lines of, ‘Come back here, you, and if you don’t come back, I’ll chop these two into bits and pieces.’”

“Most eloquently put, sir,” Asgrim said.

“So get ready for the final rays of the sun whence you will be offed.”

Dani and Granny were roughly carried into the longship and strapped to the mast.

“Let the Great Sacrificial Yuletide Festival commence!” Scathe announced to the crowd. “Prepare the dragon for burning! And let our festivities begin!”

Dani and Granny, tied to the mast of the longship, had hardly any time left to effect an escape. The sun was setting but probably wouldn’t fully sink beyond the horizon for another twenty minutes, give or take. They struggled with the ropes at their hands, chests, and feet.

“Can’t help but think, Granny—” Dani said, through a clenched jaw.

“What, dear?”

“—that a penknife would come in very handy around about now!” She cast a sidelong glance at her sheepish granny.

“Frankly, Dani, and I’m not saying a penknife wouldn’t be useful, but all things considered, right at this moment in time, I could murder a mini quiche.”

Dani glared past her great-great-great-grandmother toward the mountain and the lowering sun.

“And now,” Scathe shouted out to the crowd from his podium, taking a lit torch from a stand and thrusting it into the air, “without further ado, we sacrifice the evil Red King of Denmark’s accomplices!”

“Hey!” Dani called out. “You said we’d be sacrificed by the final rays of the sun—the
final
rays of the sun! There are plenty rays of the sun left! Plenty.”

“Silence, impudent traitoress! When I said ‘the final rays of the sun,’ I meant
‘whenever the heck I feel like it.’ And, whaddya know, I feel like it now,” Scathe said.

Dani turned to face Scathe and look him in the eye. She saw him try to project an air of supremely confident arrogance, but, behind the bravado she caught a flicker of apprehension. She followed his gaze into the crowd.

“Ruairi will not come,” Granny whispered confidently to Dani. Dani didn’t say anything; she was not so sure.

They both turned back just in time to see Scathe’s quick spin and thrust as he flung a lit torch right at them on the deck of the longship. The torch landed with a
thump
less than three feet from the mast and rolled toward them. It finally came to a stop mere inches from the kindling. The flame didn’t go out. Neither, however, did it threaten to light the kindling. .