Читать книгу Viking Terror - Tom Henighan - Страница 10

They slipped around the sturdy birch trunks and made straight for the heart of the grove.

Rigg stepped carefully over fallen branches, tree limbs that had been cast down by winter storms and were mired now in mud and frosty leaves. He walked warily, blinking at the glitter of the ice on the white bark, sensitive to everything — to the branches gleaming in the sunshine, to the crunch of their footsteps, to distant birdsong, to the intermittent silence.

As they approached the inmost circle of the grove, he touched Ari’s arm and pointed. The nine birch trees that formed the central circle of the place had been trimmed of all but a few stout branches. These inter-locked in a kind of ring or hoop, and from this hung nine thick leather strands. Six of these displayed a ghastly array of skeletons, bits of dried, frozen carcasses, and what might have been the remains of very old garlands and flower offerings. From one of the six hung an assemblage of bones, parts of a large skeleton that eight or nine harsh winters had not obliterated. It was clearly human. Three of the hanging thong bindings had been stripped bare by time or scavengers.

The two young men stopped and contemplated the offerings. For a moment they were silent, a little overwhelmed by the solemn place.

“Avert the spectre, avert the walking dead, avert the sending, the ghost of every shape,” murmured Rigg, using the traditional words. He shuddered as he pronounced the formula, but after a few minutes he felt much more secure. The dead man’s ghost, he hoped, would not haunt them now.

The young men bowed their heads and offered their silent prayers for the long-dead victim.

“Our farmers will be happy to know that the human victim’s remains are still visible,” Ari murmured. “They’ll say our harvests have benefited because of it. Those pigs and goats — or whatever it was they hung up there — haven’t fared so well. But who was the victim, I wonder?”

Rigg looked blank and then responded, “Now I remember — your family came from Iceland after the sacrifice. Well, I once asked my mother about it. She told me he was a man who cheated Erik, a relative of the warrior Thrand who died in Vinland.”

“I don’t think I’ll be cheating Erik,” Ari declared. “Although I know the poor hanged man was honoured by being chosen for the sacrifice.”

Ari was quite serious, Rigg saw, and he started to comment, but before he could get the words out, a cry arose, a deep-voiced, mournful cry, repeated once, twice, three times, until the whole valley resounded with its sad, persistent wailing.

Ari turned to his friend, white-faced and staring. Rigg felt his fingers grow cold, the back of his neck tingle.

“Wolf?” Ari whispered.

“I hope it’s only that,” Rigg said, peering at the far cliffs through the tangle of birch boughs and trunks. “But I don’t see a thing as yet.”

The cry sounded again. It began as a low-pitched complaint, then climbed painfully upward, through a series of changes of pitch, only to climax in a long-drawn-out howl, in which all the misery of loneliness, all the sorrow of isolation, seemed to fill the valley.

Rigg recognized the cry of the solitary wolf seeking companionship and the strength of the pack. It was a cry sometimes heard on the edges of the settlements.

Ari called out suddenly: “Over there, on the cliffside!” He had bent down and was peering underneath the maze of tree branches, pointing and moving forward.

Rigg caught a glimpse of a flashing white form outlined for a moment against the dark rocks.

“Let’s go after him!” he cried.

The two young men scrambled out from underneath the branches, found a path through the birch grove, and after some dodging and sidestepping, emerged in the open valley.

There they stopped to listen, as once again the wolf cry filled the valley.

Ari smiled knowingly. “He can’t be far away. Perhaps we can get him now.”

They distanced themselves from the birch grove, advancing, rather warily, into the centre of the valley. There they found a shallow ditch, where they searched the ground for tracks, but among the partially melted patches of ice and snow, and the litter of lichen-covered rocks and stones, they found nothing.

Moving slowly, they crossed the level space separating them from the high cliffs opposite. The wolf cries had made them more sensitive to the silence, to the intermittent whispers of wind, to the tramp of their own boots on the spring earth. The sunlight blazed down steadily, and the morning’s flurry of snow was nearly forgotten.

They were still some twenty yards from the cliffs, watchful and a little tense, when they saw it.

Without a word, they stooped, kneeled, and slipped their longbows off their shoulders.

Something had moved on the cliff above them — not a white-coated wolf or bear this time, but something dark-skinned and agile — slipping from rock to rock and turning to stare at them with what might well have been a human face.

“Did you see it, Ari?” Rigg whispered. The plaintive howling, the mixed human and animal tracks, first a white creature and now suddenly a brown one. Could this be their werewolf?

But in his mind Rigg was still unsure. He remembered from his Vinland adventure how hard it was to look at the living world and read the truth there.

Ari stood transfixed, staring at the high cliffs. “That wasn’t any ordinary wolf,” he muttered. “Greenland wolves all have white coats, like the first creature we saw. And if it’s a werewolf our longbows are useless.”

Rigg nodded, and Ari continued, his voice both tense and eager: “Those tracks we found earlier, and now these two sightings — it seems that creature can turn in an instant from wolf into man! This is a powerful shape-shifter, or else something right out of our ken. I don’t know what to think. Maybe we should go back and talk to Tyrkir and the others.”

Rigg shook his head. “It’s too soon — we’ve learned nothing so far. You know that.”

“You’re right. But there’s another thing. That wolf cry — I recognized it, and you did too. It sounded like a very real wolf, didn’t it? Remember, years ago, Vikar the Hunter taught us to read that sound. It was the cry of a solitary wolf seeking the pack. Now just suppose the pack arrives. What then, Rigg — what do we do then?”

“Then we get out of here — if we can.”

Ari nodded thoughtfully. “Let’s search the cliffs first. If we find our killer wolf, we take home a trophy. If the arrows don’t harm it, or it turns into that brown creature, it must be a werewolf — and we run. In any case, we get out of this valley and back to the settlement before sunset, when the whole pack may arrive.”

“A good plan! I’ll work my way up that slope by the alder scrub; you take the terraced rock where those boulders are. Anything could be hiding in there! If either of us needs help, he can shout!”

Each of the young Vikings selected an arrow from the small bundle on his back, each held both the arrow and the longbow loosely but at the ready, in his left hand, and cautiously advanced in the agreed direction.

As Rigg tramped through the scrub bush, he breathed a short prayer to Odin, who had hung nine days on a tree to learn the secret of the runes. He asked the wise god to show them a safe path from this haunted valley.

Despite this prayer, and despite his trust in Ari, who was so sturdy and quick, Rigg wished now that they had also brought Tyrkir along. In the face of any mystery, the rune master would know exactly what to do. But Tyrkir had shown no interest in wolf-hunting. He was occupied enough in trying to make peace between Freydis, with her magic and her pagan ways, and Grandmother Thiodhild, who wanted to convert everyone to Christianity.

A few times Rigg had seen his grandmother make the Christian sign of the cross and he had often heard her talk about the Christ. So, just to be on the safe side, he crossed himself quickly and made a short prayer to the God from the east who had also hung on a tree. With both Odin and Christ on his side, it seemed that he could hardly fail.

Just then, however, the slope grew steeper, and Rigg had to pay attention to the path. The sun had already melted small patches of snow, and the earth underfoot was soft and treacherous. Loose boulders rimmed a ledge, and beyond that a rift in the rock face revealed some natural steps that Rigg was sure he could climb. By this time he had lost sight of Ari, but he knew that his friend was armed and capable, and that a mere signal could bring either of them to help the other.

Inch by inch at first, Rigg climbed up the natural rock chimney toward the higher ridge. Although all the ledges were covered with moss and lichen and were very slippery, he was an agile climber and, with his bow and arrows stowed away again, he made good progress. The blazing sun made him sweat, and his fingers inside his gloves seemed about to melt, but anything, he reminded himself, was better than a sudden Greenland blizzard.

Near the top, he stopped to catch his breath, then emerged on a narrow track that led toward a shelf of rock, a smooth platform of stone and moss that projected some distance out over the valley.

Rigg peered over the edge of the precipice at the land below. He could see the birch grove and the ditch they had stopped at. A stream must run there in summer. Gazing down the rock face, he was surprised at how high he had already climbed, and surprised too that he could hear nothing of Ari. He didn’t want to call out just then, lest his friend think he was in trouble. He would climb just a little higher and try to signal to him by hand.

Rigg retreated a few steps and found there was a path behind the boulders near the rock wall. The path sloped upward, concealed by some fallen rock and a few scrub alder and dwarf willow plants.

This would make the ascent to the higher ridge much easier. He was wary, however — a little edgy at losing contact with Ari — so he readied his bow and an arrow and made his way cautiously up the slippery incline.

He climbed up the smooth, narrow slope, a natural rock ramp leading to the top of the cliff. The path was so steep that Rigg almost felt as if he was ascending into the fierce blue sky. The dark rocks around him glittered, and sunlight painted the lichen, moss, and scrub plants a bright green.

Rigg was a good climber, but the steep path had slowed him down, and the sunlight dazzled, so that when the quarry suddenly flashed white on the clifftop some way above him, he reacted too slowly.

Rigg’s bow twanged and the arrow sped upward. The wolf had stopped for an instant in full flight and the arrow must have grazed one foot, for he spun around, yelped like a tortured demon for a few seconds, and then disappeared.

Rigg shouted and scrambled up the slippery rock path as fast as he was able. At the top, to his surprise, he found himself on another narrow ledge. The valley lay far below. There was no sign of the wolf.

Behind the ledge, however, was something unexpected: a cliffside broken and gouged by time, with hollow spaces in the rock itself and a large opening into the hillside, one that seemed to reveal a cave of sizable proportions.

Sweating and gasping from his exertion, Rigg stopped to fit his bow with another arrow. He walked hesitantly forward — he had no love of caves or caverns. No doubt the wolf was hiding in there. But where was Ari?

He thought of retracing his steps to find him — but that might mean losing the wolf track. Rigg stood in some doubt until his glance fixed on a smooth, dark patch of stone near the entrance to the large cave. He approached it and found that it was covered with runic writing. There he read the name of his grandfather, Erik the Red, and of his father, Leif, as well as those of several other Vikings. Freydis, too, had her name inscribed on the smooth stone.

This must be the cave where the Norse stayed overnight at the time of the sacrifices! Perhaps Freydis had visited here when she did her magic in the valley.

Suddenly, the unknown had become the known, and Rigg felt much better. He would signal Ari, and then they would make some fire and go into the cave after the wolf.

The boy scrambled back to the cliff and began shouting. He shouted for a few minutes at the top of his lungs and then listened. But all he could hear was the echo of his own cry.

Rigg lay on his belly at the edge of the cliff and peered over. The rock facings, the approaches to the hillside, and the valley itself were all silent. The only hint of motion was the glitter of the sunlight on the melting snow.

Perplexed, Rigg moved back to the cave entrance. He looked into the darkness and decided no; he would not go in there all alone. He would go down and find Ari and they would come back together and stalk the wolf. If the wounded animal escaped in the meantime, so be it. He would not go alone into that darkness.

As he stood there, however, peering into the shadowy cave, he heard something unexpected. It was a soft splashing, coming from the darkness inside, the sound of water striking stone.

Curious, he took a single step forward and noticed something else: a faint light that flickered in the cavern’s depths.

How could there be light in there? Was it a fire? Had Ari arrived there before him?

He called out the name of his friend a few times, but no one answered.

Was there a crack in the roof allowing the sunlight to enter? Was there another entrance at the rear of the cavern? That was very likely, since the Vikings did not like places that might turn into traps.

If there was light enough to see, there was light enough to shoot — Rigg decided he would advance just a little farther into that gloomy place. If the wolf was indeed hiding there, he would be able to get a good shot off before the beast could attack.

Rigg took a step forward, then another. Some distance ahead, light glittered on the wet cavern walls. The ceiling was lower at that point and there seemed to be no exit, but a side passage was just visible — a narrow turning perhaps leading somewhere. The source of the light must be there.

Rigg decided that he would go forward only as far as that junction. He couldn’t afford to be surprised from behind. He heard no telltale animal sounds, however — no growls or barks or heavy breathing — and this reassured him. He would merely take a look, then retreat into the sunshine. Ari could not be far away.

He advanced one, two steps and listened. Nothing but the sound of dripping water. The light flickered brightly ahead. Another two steps. Still no sign of the wolf.

One more step and he would be able to get a look down the right-hand passage. He inched forward.

Rigg’s sudden cry filled the cave. Straight ahead, hanging up by his legs above a big fire, was Ari. He was bound and gagged and twirling ever so gently at the end of a thick leather thong. The fire crackled a few feet beneath his head. Gigantic shadows moved on the cave walls.

Rigg sprang forward, rushing to free his friend, but something moved in the shadows, light flashed briefly on a bone white club, and a blow landed hard on the side of his head.

Then the darkness swallowed him and he saw and heard nothing more.