[Flashback] The Bone Hunter (Act I)

[Ulric]

82nd of Fall, 504 AV

The torn, mangled cloak sank over the ground. “Haferd’s dead,” Ulric growled as he knelt beside the ring of fire, chafing his gloves together to get the blood flowing in his numbed fingers. There was a hush. Hard eyes from hard men, bearded faces dyed by the bluish streak of dawn. He shifted uneasily, body shaking from the piercing cold. The trees swayed and rustled under the onslaught of the skirling winds. The charred branches crackled and spat as they were consumed by greedy flames. Agnar just spat on the crust of hoarfrost. Thord grunted, went back to leaning on his spear.

“Wolves?”

“Aye,” Ulric nodded at Einar, knowing he didn’t need to explain any further. Now that winter gripped the desolate forest, the beasts were desperate. By day, they slept among the ranks of gray firs and sentinel pines, brindled fur blending with the crust of snow that carpeted the peaks. Then shadows would writhe their way across the peaks, and ghastly howls rose from the cruel dark, sending tendrils of fear coursing down his spine. He closed his eyes, wishing he hadn’t decided to stray toward the swift, icy stream. The sight of death didn’t bother him. That was a typical fate in this line of work, something he could expect and embrace. expected. No, what gnawed at him was knowing that while a comrade was fighting for life, throat ravaged by snarling fangs, he was dreaming of the canals beneath his layers of furs, the dark sprawl of his city reflected on the glassy surface of the lake. Not even a rusty hauberk had served to thwart of the beasts. Haferd’s carcass had been consumed so completely that only bloody rags and scraps of pale flesh remained over a cage of bare, glistening bones.

He won’t even get a pyre.

Ulric scowled, though he knew they couldn’t waste any more time. Ivar was eager to find his bones, and the others wished to hasten their task and leave the bleak, snowy peaks before the cruel shroud of winter was upon them. No matter what, the crows will have their feast, he thought bitterly, glancing at the dark birds that perched in crooks of the slender birches, beaks clacking. Presently he returned his gaze to the glowing embers, watching the swirling cinders, the faces that seemed to appear in the flames. These crags were like a spine, towering above the rocky tors, plains of undulating tundra, and dense, wooded ridges. They seemed to go on forever.

“What now?” asked Ingvar, the youngest of their band. Ulric looked away, not having the guts to say they were probably all going to die before reaching the forlorn barrow where the bones were supposedly kept. If not at the claws of the wolves, he’d likely succumb to the cold, starvation, and despair, or even perish at the point of a spear.

Grim spat into the fire.

“Me, I’m going to take a shyke,” growled the squat warrior. He fumbled with his belt and made to squat near a cluster of boulders. Nobody else said anything. Agnar kept on carving slivers of rancid horse into the dinted cauldron, whistling a nameless tune through what few teeth remained to him. Knute glanced up for a moment, then went back to his prayers. Tyrfing was honing one of his swords. I guess that’s that.

Ulric hunched his shoulders, shaking under his heavy sable cloak as he sought to remember the whore he’d lain with before leaving the city, the slap of warm flesh and the scent of sweaty musk. He didn’t mind not knowing her name. How long has it been? He scraped at his patchy beard, at the biting, creeping lice in his scalp.

“Stew’s ready,” grunted Agnar, giving the contents of the fire-blackened pot a final stir with his dagger. He was the oldest of them, scarred and reeking worse than a demon’s crack. His stew didn’t taste much better.

Ulric slurped down his portion, knowing it was all he was likely to get this morning, and passed the empty bowl to Einar. “It’s a pity those wolves aren’t coming back for more,” the warrior murmured to him. “The broth could use a bit of flavor.”
“There’s always what’s left of Haferd,” said Grim, his mouth curling up in a menacing leer.

“Count me out,” Einar grimaced. “I’m not that desperate.”

“You will be soon,” vowed Grim. Though he was loath to admit such a thing, Ulric knew the man spoke truth. Taking up a stiff, greasy rag, he began to wipe the frost from his bearded axe, casting sidelong glances at their leader. Ivar, known as the Red-Eye, had entered this life devoid of any coloring, his flesh a milky white, eyes pricks of crimson in an angular, cadaverous face. He sat with his back against a boulder encrusted by gray and purple lichen, sheathed sword across his knees, a faint grin on his lips. He was half-mad, yet fearsome, entirely bent on finding the bones he required for his darkling sorcery. Ulric always felt uneasy around him, unable to meet those writhing slits of eyes, half-expecting great, bloated maggots to burst forth from the sockets.

They soon broke camp, wending their way further through the broken rocks and creaking, murmuring boles that wept a thick, ruddy sap. Their rag-wrapped boots left faint tracks in the crust of snow, exposing a carpet of dank, decaying leaves. The ground was rough and uneven, forcing them to march up ridges and traverse stony, thundering gorges wreathed by thick fog. The mossy rocks were slick and treacherous underfoot, and the water frigid at best. The deepling pools were covered by frail shards of frost. Ulric clutched his spear tight, breathing heavily as they surmounted each obstacle, his shaking breaths manifesting as clouds of vapor. The leather pack was leaden upon his back, holding furs, food, and tools, straps biting deep into the meat of his shoulders, and over it was lashed his round shield and a pair of snowshoes. He’d known the dangers of this trek from the start. “Many of you are going to die,” Ivar had informed them as they crowded around the long table, tankards clutched firmly in their hands, the roaring fire at their backs. “Many of you are not hard enough for what must be done, but the survivors are sure to be rewarded with gold, women, whatever you desire.” The mead had flowed, the women had been wet and ready, and the men eager to join him. Ulric had to admit, the Red-Eye’s low whisper was darkly seductive, deeply penetrating. Nine men had sworn their spears to him that night, and four more come the morning. Eight were left.

They had sworn away their lives for a scrap of parchment, the faded fragment of a map that the Red-Eye guarded jealously against his breast.

Ulric strode through the trunks, scraping a glove against the dark, rough bark. He stared up through the canopy of needles, saw that the sky was bleak and gray, cursed as his elbow caught on grasping briars. He jerked away, leaving the thorns sticking out of his layers of leather armor. The wind did not slacken, freezing him to the bone. Taking a quick glance around, he drew a skin of water from under his shaggy, reeking sheepskin, he took a long draught, shaking violently as the frigid water ran down his throat. There was a quork of a raven, the distant baying of elk. “Don’t drink too greedily.” Einar placed a hand on his arm, strung bow hanging at his side. “You don’t want to give yourself the deep shivers, my friend.”

“Fair enough,” Ulric grunted, lowering the skin. Taking a firmer grip on his spear, he was about to move on when a flask was pressed upon him. He gave the hunter a grateful nod, jerked out the cork, and took a sip of the fiery liquid, felt it spread through his chest, down to the depths of his empty gut. He almost felt warm.

Then the moment was over.

[Ulric]

Ulric knelt on a shelf of green-gray granite that rose above the burbling rivulet, dangling a length of twine in the turgid current. To either side, the walls of the ravine towered over him, dark and sheer, and before him there was a deep cascade of water gushing from over a ledge. The others had made a dismal camp further down the ravine, but the skirling winds had carried away the acrid scent of smoke, howling through the jagged rocks, bare birches, the solemn firs. His spear lay to the side, the head gleaming against a carpet of lichen. He’d been there for some time, shivering, huddling, thinking. And yet, as his head rose to regard the swaying trees, he discerned a tug against his numb fingers. He glanced down, saw how the string was taut, mouthed a prayer. He didn’t have any great difficulty landing the fish, just jerked it from the water and dashed the head against the rocks, then sought to bait his hook again. That was easier said than done, for his hands were already numbed and the slivers of horse were coated with slimy beads of putrefaction. The large, bony beast had died many days before, but they couldn’t seem to get rid of the stench. He cursed when his thumb stuck to the frozen metal, trying to ease it away, but failing. He heard rather than felt the rip of tender flesh, saw a bead of crimson form on the ball of his thumb. He sucked on it for a moment, then yanked the glove back on and flung the hook into the water. The fish stared up at him, slate-gray fins unmoving on the rocks, scales growing dull under the darkening sky. He endured this misery for a bit longer, but the cold was too much, and the waters too empty.

Taking up his spear, Ulric began to retrace his steps, sending puffs of white out before him. The frost crunched under his feet, making the leaves leaden and hard. He felt the fish slowly freezing solid from where it dangled from his pack, striking the backs of his thighs with every step. So cold, he gasped, sending out puffs of white vapor. They were dying, wracked by sucking coughs, cheeks flushed with fever, but they kept marching. The bones awaited them.

Bones, bones, bonesssssss.

Even the wind seemed to whisper the word, ringing in the depths of his head, plaguing his every waking moment. He was so weary, but he kept moving, knowing that his joints would only stiffen further if he halted, that the warmth would drain from him and his eyes would soon close in an unending slumber. He saw tracks in the snow, scant things made by rodents, and a trunk torn to shreds by the claws of a bear. There he paused for a moment, lifting an unsteady hand to stroke the bark, then crouching to look for tracks. He found several of them, deep things with a smaller pad on the heel, the vague scratches of claws extending slightly beyond the closely spaced marks of the toes. He glanced around, feeling a deeper shiver run down his spine, and kept going. The butt of his spear made regular scuffs in the snow.

Ulric reached the others before dark, bearing the bony fish. He did not bring it to the cauldron, but sat down near the edge of the fire, his back to a broad trunk. The glove came off again, with a wince, and he reached for the knife at his hip, heard it scrape from the leather sheath. He began to scrape away the scales, wary of the rabid faces turned to him, then sawed off the tail and cut upwards to the head, scraping out the guts with his fingers. “Aspar,” he grunted, then flung over the fish.

There wasn’t enough. There was never enough, but they ate it swiftly enough, almost choking on the slender bones. Then there were only crusts of hard, stale bread to go around, some rinds of moldy cheese. Knute spat out a broken incisor, went back on eating. They’d lost the bulk of their stores when the other horse had been borne away by a river, sucked down in the slimy depths. Ulric just curled up in his furs when he’d finished, trying to retain what warmth he could. He found himself watching the albino, though. The Red-Eye barely ate, it seemed. He grew gaunter every day, but the fire never faded from his eyes, the soft madness from his words.

“What are you thinking?” Einar fed a bundle of twigs to the fire, blew on them so that the flames surged up red and greedy, consuming the twigs with a sigh. That we should not have come here, Ulric wanted to say, but he dared not.

“That we need to hunt.”

“Hunt.” Einar forced a grin. “Hunt.” That said, he turned over, rustling under his pelts. Then his burly form went rigid. Ulric stayed up longer, for he could not get to sleep. He crawled from his own furs, went to sit closer by the fire. Aspar was on watch, a bow laid over his knees, quiver at his feet.

“Something on your mind?”

Ulric didn’t say anything, just watched the man’s dagger dance over a block of pine, prying away pale slivers. Aspar gave a shrug. “Spoons,” he grunted, gesturing at the heap of shavings. “Sharing bowls won’t do when one of us starts choking up our guts.” Ulric nodded.

“Gives me something to do, then,” he spoke lowly, reaching for his knife. He began by laying the bark from a branch with long, even strokes, fingers growing sticky with the redolent sap. He found it harder to shape the green wood, the knife a clumsy device for hollowing and making curves, and presently he left off his labors.

Bundled in furs, he dreamed of snow.

[Ulric]

Tinged with flecks of crimson, the dawn rose cold and clear, with a flock of geese horking over their heads. The snows were coming. Ulric wended his way through the swaying gray trunks, spear at the ready. Trying to keep his breathing even, his boots crunching over the crust of snow, he searched the stony ground and its pale covering of powder, shreds of a darker gray. The markings were at regular intervals, a pair of the great beasts foraging for whatever fodder they could glean from their bleak surroundings. He knelt down, placed his fur-clad hand against one of the cloven-hoofed tracks. There were traces of feeding in the patches of frozen cloudberry, tender saplings, and faded purple heather, the twigs broken, stems weeping a sticky sap. The hoofs had scraped away the snow and stiff, decomposing leaves to feed on discolored mosses and crusts of pale lichen in places, yet the droppings he encountered were hard, ice forming underneath, the clumps sticking together.

He was far from his quarry.

Ulric rose slowly, frowning at the crystals of frost forming on the head of his spear. He searched the gray forest again, saw nothing, heard only the wind skirling in his ears, reminding him of his growling, empty gut. He would not despair, though. He began to walk again, trying to move as quietly as he could, though he knew his scent, borne upon the wind, already gave away his presence. I am a hunter of bones, not game, he thought bitterly, and bones do not fill your belly.

Ingvar was too poorly to hunt, his eyes clouded by fever, body wracked by the shivers. Knute and Thord weren’t much better, and Ivar wouldn’t have been any use. Aspar had also stayed behind, and together they’d laid their hopes on Tyrfing, Grim, Einar, and Ulric, who wasn’t even certain what he was doing. “Just go out and slay something,” Grim had growled, thrusting the spear into his hands, and out he’d gone, leaving his warm, reeking bed of pelts for the uncertain forest.

Leaning his spear against the lower branches of a slender, umber birch, he chafed his palms together, wiping the back of his hand across his face. The fur only smeared his spiky beard with thick, running snot. He coughed, chest heaving violently with the spasm, and took up his spear again. The tracks went on further, leading through the trunks, over sheer ridges and through turgid streams. He was certain to cut a mark every now and then in the rough bark of some towering, glacial finger, rising like a giant from the broken ground, so that he could make his way back. He saw cages of red briars, falls of dead timber, the dark bead of a shriveled, frozen berry that he plucked with clumsy hands, thrust into his mouth without a second thought. The tough flesh was tart upon his tongue.

Then he saw them, the patches of scuffed ground, heaps of droppings. He felt his chest flutter, certain the beasts had sheltered here for the night. They cannot be far. He knelt again, using a hand to trace the jumble of tracks, the cracked, squashed clutches of twigs where the beasts had lain down. The dropping were mostly stiff and hard, but on some there was only the vaguest hint of a gathering frost. They were closer.

Ulric began to move faster, urging his weary legs to pursue the tracks over downed, frosty trunks, past a crest of worn boulders. He paused for a moment at this dome, where the firs rose squat and stunted, and looked over the gray sky, wisps of low-hanging clouds lingering below a shroud of sorrows. How has it come to this? he frowned, but there was no comfort in regrets. He was a creature of the winter now, a construct of frozen flesh and bones, bleakly defying the biting cold, the cruel, barren rocks under his feet. He began to move again, though slowly now, his legs shuffling like those of a bent graybeard, spear scraping on the ground. Tired, so very tired.

Father, is this a dream?

Raising his head, he heaved a shaking sigh, grimacing as his face was wreathed by vapor. He could feel the warmth leaving his body. Each breath he sucked in was like a knife in his lungs. He slowly made his way down the slope, lurching over concealed rocks, tangling with thorns. The crows mocked him harshly. He did not falter, for the tracks spread out before him, leading him to rags and ruin.

Only when he reached the base of the ridge, where a harsh, swift stream raged through the gorge, did he find that he was being followed. There were four of them, slaver hanging from their spiky snouts, fangs drawn back to snarl lowly at his back. They were gaunt, the ribs bursting up from their mottled, patchy coats, a glint of savagery in their eyes. Wolves. Was this how Haferd went? Ulric was strangely calm. He let the spear clatter upon the ground, fumbling with the lashings of his round shield as he retreated slowly, casting wary glances back at the stream. Then the first wolf was lunging at him, legs pumping over the stony ground. With a grunt, he snatched the bearded axe from over his shoulder, lashing out with the curved head. The wolf darted under the swing, jaws snapping, but it wasn’t cagey enough to avoid the descending shield. The heavy rim caught it in the face, dashing out a fang with a spurt of crimson, the blunt force of the blow smacking away the snarling head. “Come on, you petchers,” he growled, and so they did.

Ulric felt his hands shaking with fear, pulse racing madly, dryness at the back of his mouth as they came at him, rumbling deep in their throats. He scythed the axe around, forcing them back, kept the shield raised up before him, a woefully meager bulwark against the writhing flesh and fur. He danced back with a curse, sensing they would lunge at him from all sides, prickly fangs trying to close on his arms, his legs, bearing him down with their combined bulk and ferocity. Not today, beasts, he growled when the first sprang at him, swiping it aside with his shield, and hacked with his axe at the second. He hewed into a bony neck, hearing cartilage snap, a gout of crimson washing over his hands, and then the wolf went sprawling over the stream’s bank. He gave a sharp grunt as strong jaws closed around his ankle, trying to jerk it out from under him. His chest was heaving, heart pounding, weary muscles aching. He lurched to the side, nearly sinking to his knees, but he found the strength to stay on his feet. The backswing of his axe caught the beast a glancing blow. There was yelp, and then another was latching onto him, fangs rending through furs and leather to tear at his wrist, amber eyes locking onto his own dark orbs. He sucked in a quick, tremulous breath, nearly choking at the stench of bile and putrefying meat. The agony was sharp and unrelenting, twisting his face into a grimace, a strangled cry erupting from his raw throat. He went down, vainly trying to shake the wolf away. He felt bands of desperation begin to constrict his chest, making his mind numb, his body leaden.

But he would not submit.

With a cry, he smashed the edge of his shield down on the beast’s snout, heard a yelp when he struck. Then the fangs were gone, though a pulsing agony remained. Ulric brought his axe around, seeking to clear some space, his legs scraping the ground bare of snow. He swept his shield at a wolf that sought to snap at his neck, and then they were fleeing, hind legs kicking up clumps of frost.

Through they sensed his fear, they were fleeing.

Why?

Ulric crawled to his feet, a low moan emanating from his cracked, frost-blackened lips. His entire body was shaking. He felt the pulse of warm blood down his fingers, wondered if he should tend to the punctures. But that would mean taking off my glove, he grimaced, knowing that he didn’t have the resolve for that any longer. The wind was like a pair of fiendish pincers, biting deep into his skin, his bones. The frost menaced his clumsy fingers, the dark stub of his nose. Taking up his spear, he made his way across the stream, leaping over the rocks, nearly taking a tumble into the frigid waters before he reached the other bank. He crouched down, nervously glancing back to discern if there were any lurking wolves, and placed his hand over a track.

Then flakes began to descend from the heavy sky.

[Ulric]

Why are we here? Ulric reached a hand over the lip of the ravine, fingers clawing at the rocks and tangle of roots, frost riming his beard. He grunted, hauled himself over the edge and lay gasping beside his thrown spear, staring up at the swirling curtain of white. The ground had been swiftly carpeted, broken rocks becoming pale, hushed sentinels, gray trunks towering over mounds of swaying heather. He fumbled for his hood, jerked it back over his tender neck, not even sensing the brush of fur against his bearded cheek. Need to keep moving, he grunted, reaching for his spear. Need to keep moving. He struggled to his feet, a thin coat of frost melting on his brow. He leaned on the shaft of the spear, staring down over the stony ledge for a long moment, mind thick and clumsy. Then he turned away from the sheer, dark rocks, began to trudge through the slowly heaping drifts.

The firs grew densely, forcing him to brush aside their gray, prickly boughs, sending up a haze of powder. He heard a branch crack under the burden of the frost, then a crash as it struck the ground. The wind was in his ears, at the back of his head, drowning out the crunch of his boots, the crack of twigs and dry needles. There were melting tears on his cheeks. He broke away from the throng of firs, shambled past towering cedars and swaying, flaking birches. The spear was leaden in his hands. He soon came to a halt, bracing himself against a spur of rock to get away from the wind, shoulders hunched.

Then he heard the snort.

Ulric glanced up, lowering his spear, eyes widening as he glimpsed the great, heavy rack of antlers, flakes clinging to a shaggy, orange-brown pelt, steam erupting from a broad snout. His prey. He kept his distance, biding his time as it pawed at the frozen ground with sharp hoofs, staring him down. Then it charged, deep bugle emanating from a heaving chest, hooves thundering. Shyke, he growled, fear creeping into his heart. There was nothing to do but crouch down, thrusting the butt of his spear against the ground. He voiced a silent prayer. The beast kept on coming, curved prongs angling for his face, threatening to crush him with its vast bulk, before edging away at the last moment. He thrust with his spear, felt it drag against the heavy pelt, threads of bright crimson lashing across the snow. Then the weapon was dashed from his hands, cast to the ground with a clang, and the elk was bounding away. He’d failed.

We’re dead, he thought, staring dully at the spear. We’re dead. He nearly felt like crying, but he swiftly banished the fear before it could take hold, knelt to retrieve the spear. The elk had left a scant trail of red. That was what he would follow. He forced his weary legs into a trot, head bowed against the cruel wind. The trunks were a gray blur, the boulders poking up unevenly. He kept going, his gaze drawn to the hoof marks in the snow, the darkening drops. There was a rattle deep in his throat, his chest heaving as he sought to draw breath. He began to falter, then halted, dark specks rushing across his field of vision. He blinked.

Then he began to walk, despair slowly taking over. There would be no meat. There was no hope, the tracks would fade, he would surely perish. Then a cloud of rage. He waved the spear angrily, struck a shelf of snow from a hanging bough. “Petch,” he snarled, then louder, “Petch!”

The scream, though outwardly futile, probably saved his skin. There was an answering roar, nearly carried away on the howling wind. He began to run again, churning through the drifts, lurching madly. Then he broke through a screen of snowy pines, saw the lean, fur-clad form of Einar bent over the dead elk, knife at the ready. There was a dark shaft bristling from the beast’s neck. “Ulric,” he growled, face twisting in a troubled frown. “Get out your knife.”

Ulric did as he was told, and together they began to butcher the elk. He slashed around the lower legs, just below the joints, began to jerk back the skin. Einar worked on the belly of the carcass, separating pelt from purple muscle, and then made a cut down the stomach, reaching in the gaping maw and yanking out the wet, glistening cords of guts, sending up a meager swirl of steam. Ulric worked as swiftly as he could, hauling on the pelt with his left hand, warily scraping at the white, nearly translucent layers of skin and fat that adhered pelt to meat. He put down his knife, hauled with both hands, heard the skin tear and flap aside. “Leave that,” Einar growled at him, his voice made guttural by the wind. “Just the meat.” He flung a fraying blanket on the ground, slapped down a cut of bloody meat.

“Fine.” Ulric forced a nod, cut into the haunch. He carved at the tough muscle, watching a thick, sticky crimson leak out from the cuts, trying to keep his grip on the slick knife. He began to slice around the joint on the upper leg, trying to detach the haunch, then reached for his axe. He swung it high above his head, brought it down to sever the lower leg, crush and shatter the bones so he could haul away the raw, mangled haunch, begin on the second. No, that won’t work, he grunted. We’d have to push the petching beast over. He bent over the carcass again, but then there was a heavy, fur-clad hand on his shoulder, reeking of blood.

“Come on,” Einar shouted over the wind, and Ulric drew back, spear leaning against his shoulder, fumbling with the haunch. He clasped it to his chest, keeping his elbow firmly around the bulky joint, and lurched over to the other man.

“Where’s the camp?”

“Not far.” Einar had slung the long, carved bow over his shoulder, leaving him both hands to drag at the sodden, heaped blanket. “Follow me.”

Ulric did.

[Ulric]

Through the starkly rising drifts, trudging with the limp of a grimace, icy tears on a face numbed by cold. That was his life now, the solitary sum of his existence. The field of his vision reduced to the broad, shifting back in front of him, the fur cowl rising over that familiar, yet empty face in his mind, the name that wouldn’t spring to his lips. He kept going, though. He had to keep going, or else he would perish. He barely knew what he was doing, clumsy boots forcing through heaps of snow, tangling on concealed rocks, downed branches. There were regular cracks of tumbling, laden boughs, but he had already forgotten what they were, so he kept going in a tense, terrifying hush.

Time was everything. Time was irrelevant. Time was his delirium but he later found himself crouched by licking flames, a warm pelt coated by tinkling beads of ice flung over his back. He chafed his hands, drank from the mug rudely thrust at his face, coughed. His mind was cloudy.

“Wake up, you fool,” growled Agnar.

There was a pregnant pause, a narrowing of eyes, a crinkling brow as he stared at the man, wondering why he was not dead. “Haven’t you heard?” He rasped, coughing again, the spasms wracking his aching chest. “There’s no escaping your worst nightmares, nor waking from an undying torment.” Agnar regarded him for a long moment.

“Cracked,” he grunted, shaking his head, and then turned back to the fire. “That petcher has cracked.”

“Give him some meat, then,” spoke Tyrfing, and then the aroma of roasting meat washed over him, making him slaver. Agnar bent over the spit, used one of his knives to saw away a chunk of the pink, tender meat, and handed it over. Ulric ate ravenously, tearing at the chunk until it sat leaden in his belly, a vague sense of nausea penetrating his body, the hot, pungent grease smearing his beard, flowing down his chin. Agnar wasn’t convinced, though.

“Then why’s he talking like a seer?”

“Seer?” There was a hush. Their eyes rushed to meet those red, glowing orbs, and were quickly averted. Red-Eye was speaking, and he never spoke. The words were low, sibilant, seeming to whisper from the thin scar of his mouth. “The dying man does not truly leave us, but endures. There are dreams of life, and dreams of death, unceasing in their sheer intensity, their lack of portent. They don’t see our souls. They care not. The charger requires no rider, just as we do not draw our swords lightly, mount the deceitful stairs of a riotous fate. The dying man sees, but does not care, for he is caught up in the dust of dreams.”

And for a moment, none of them dared to respond.

“We’re dying, you know.” Ingvar had spoken, even now curling onto his side, elbow beneath him, eyes fever-bright, entire body shaking, the dark crust of blood over his cracking lips, staining his furs. Red-Eye gazed at him unflinchingly, not even blinking as the fire crackled, the winds howled, the drifts heaped around their camp.

“Yes, we are,” he spoke at last, a slight tremor running over his hand as he clutched at his furs.

“So?”

“So we must remain here,” Red-Eye spread his arms wide, eye sockets dark in the wavering shadows, the rictus of a smile twisting his pale, emaciated face. “There is nothing we can do. The storm is too fierce, the winter too long, and our stores have dwindled.” And then, with wary glance at Ulric, “Dangerously.” Those skinny fingers beckoned them, the red eyes implored them, words alluring them with the seductive, menacing vows of destiny. “The bones can wait, for our labors turn now toward something just as great, just as necessary. There is a kingdom waiting for us, a throne of ruddy sharded flint that whispers my name. Ivar, it says, Ivar, Ivar, Ivar. I would claim my seat. I would raise an impregnable keep among these cruel, icy peaks, set up farms and forges, delve mines into the rocks and bring forth red, glowing swords, to wage war on our foes, to claim riches, women, power. That was my somber vow. That is my undying purpose, and yet, I see no harm if we begin early. The storm must wane at length, and then, my stalwart brothers, we shall make our axes ring on these timbers, wrest the craggy rocks from their moorings, and make us a seat to begin our conquest.”

The hush reigned for some time, even after Red-Eye had receded into his heavy cloak, eyes seeming to glow through the murk, taking in everything. The others returned to their tasks, murmuring lowly.

Ulric just frowned, crawled to the carcass, and sliced off another strip of meat. He ate slowly this time, reflectively, taking a seat beside Tyrfing, bundling the dirty furs over his lap. The gray eyed, chestnut haired-warrior was drawing his knife along a stick, leaving the dark, curled shavings to blow away in the gusts. There was a sag of weary, resigned drudgery in his long face. “So, you brought down the elk,” he rasped, with a scant shake of his head. “Then you did what I could not.”

“Not me,” sighed Ulric. “I just chased him away. I didn’t put the shaft in his neck.”

“Maybe you helped, maybe you didn’t.” Tyrfing regarded him cautiously. “Does it really matter?

“No, I don’t reckon it does,” said Ulric, vaguely aware of Einar nearing where they sat, of Grim leaning over, rubbing a greasy rag over his drawn sword. Tyrfing ignored them, made a clacking noise with his tongue.

“Your first hunt?”

“Not quite.” Ulric lowered his gaze, for though he wasn’t used to tracking beasts through a forest, he was very good at bringing down men that stubbornly sought his hasty demise. There was so much blood smearing his hands already, enough that he didn’t want to brag. That was the move of a fool. There was no point in saying anything to a man that could presently be your enemy.

“Pity you didn’t bring back the beast’s heart,” said Tyrfing. “I’ve heard it said that eating the bloody fibers is a proper show of respect, for if you don’t, the others know to flee your steps.”

“They do anyway,” Ulric glanced away, slightly baring his teeth in a snarl. He didn’t want to speak of the hunt any longer. “D’you know why?”

“Because you make a lot of noise?”

“Exactly.”

“You did your part,” said Einar. “That’s the only thing that counts.” He was caring for his bow, wiping down the string with a knot of wax, making sure the length of curving yew was safely wrapped by its cover of hide.

Ulric just gave a shrug.

“Could’ve brought back more of the beast,” Grim spat into the wavering flames, hands clenched in the pits of his arms. He thrust his pointed chin at the bare remnants on the skewer. “That’s going to feed us for a few days, but no longer than I’ve got fingers to count.” Grim had nine fingers, safely encased in his fur gloves.

“We’re not out of this yes, though,” Tyrfing . “Now the Red-Eye wants a kingdom?”

“And the bones,” said Ulric.

“Nine men isn’t many for conquest,” Einar gave a desultory shake of his head, peering off into the dark. Tyrfing wasn’t done speaking, though. The hunter’s voice was low and angry.

“What’s so important about them that he nearly gets us killed among these shyking peaks? They’re just bones.”

“They’re powerful,” grunted Einar. “That’s what he thinks, anyway.”

“Red-Eye is petching delusional,” Tyrfing snorted. “The bastard wants to be a tyrant, and it’s clear that we’re just lambs to the slaughter. I didn’t scrawl down my mark for building and burying.”

“Rich lambs, presumably.” Ulric frowned, taking another bite of meat, and chewed. He fought back his gorge, thrusting away the greasy scraps.

“Oh, he’s mad, all right,” Grim rasped, his eyes inexorably dark, reflecting orange in the flames. “Every word he leaves in his wake rings of sheer insanity, but you want to believe him, you want to follow him. He’s a dangerous man, if the rumors are even half right.”

“You’d follow him?” Ulric’s brow crinkled, but he met those eyes with a dark glance of his own, not backing down. Grim just gave him a sneer.

“What do you think we’re doing?”

[Ulric]

They departed just before dawn, leaving only red ember worms in their wake, crawling among fire gnawed timbers. There was a scouring of bare earth, the heaping drifts smeared with dark cinders. Einar took point, leaving Ulric to head the bleakly trudging party, behind him Red-Eye, Grim at the rear, and the others half carrying Knute and Ingvar, the hoarse coughs and curses fighting to be heard over the howl of ravening winds. Today, we find a place to linger, Ulric reflected, oblong snow shoes crunching over the hard, frosty snow. He kept leaning on the shaft of his spear, dark eyes scouring the gray trunks, the densely tangling pine boughs. They were woven by serpents of milky mist, hanging low and somberly over the dismal forest. There were a few tracks, mostly of rodents and stray wolves, he observed sourly, the red, starkly gaping ribs coming again to his mind, shackling him among their taunting depths. Don’t die, he growled, shambling unsteadily. Just find the bones, and don’t petching die.

Einar’s tracks were winding, leading them over ridges, straying away from the gorges that menaced weary legs, the rush of turgid, icy waters thundering in their ears. Ulric didn’t find any trouble following that crushed marks in the snow, just placed one foot in front of the other, lungs burning, leaden legs shaking under the burden of his gear, frost crusting on his beard. He didn’t have to move quickly, though. They were already laden with the sick, and the skies had faded, leaving blotches of gray over the scanty mists, frozen tears of the ice tinkling from the spiky pines. The storm was over, but they weren’t safe yet, not by a long shot.

Ulric just kept trudging, halting every so often so the others might rest, groaning and steaming from their efforts, as he clung stubbornly to his spear, their lone sentinel. He’d nearly died the last night, but he was in relatively fair shape, save for the pale skein of frost that crept over the tips of his fingers, the hanging lobes of his ears, his nose. We’ve got to halt, he frowned, briefly closing his eyes. We’re treading the wrong way. He slept then, held up by his spear, waking only when Thord reached for his fur-hung shoulder, cursing and coughing. “Come on,” rasped the sickly warder, and thusly he went.

They scaled a ridge, grasping at the rocky crags that had been swept clear, hauling each other up by a length of rope, and then descended into dense forests, strewn with boulders. Einar had left splotches of the elk’s blood on the daunting rocks, no doubt saved against this eventuality. But even then, the ascent was so grueling, so snaking, that Ulric nearly lost sight of them. There were more tracks below, of larger, clawed beasts, and the scant marks of cloven hoofs by a stream whose frosty tendrils were coated with frost, broken to reveal dark, gushing waters. They crept over a downed birch, their numbed, shaking feet uncertain on the flaking bark, and trudged onward, making for another, lower ridge.

Einar was waiting. “Come on,” he said, and they did, Red-Eye limping past Ulric, who let himself fall to the rear, shivering as the cruel gusts lashed at the sweat beading on his back. Only then did he permit himself to sag, then shuffled awkwardly after the others, inwardly cursing the shoes that were a blessing. Einar had chosen well, he though, eyes sweeping over the expanse of snowy forest. There, in the distance, a hulking crag of granite towered over a plunging gorge, bordered by slopes heavy with the gray trunks, spears of rock protruding jaggedly. He was wary of the others, and soon he, too, was riveted by the quiet scrutiny of Red-Eye, who’d leapt up on a boulder for a better look. Tensely, they bided for hid judgment, cowed by the sheer intensity of their leader’s presence, though few had the stones to admit their fears.

Grim was the exception, of course.

Grim feared nothing.

Finally, the Red-Eye glanced around, the corners of his mouth curling, an arm stiffly thrusting. “Good,” he rasped. “Good work, Einar.” He gave the hunter an unnerving sneer, reached over to clap him on the back. “Now, raise me a keep,” he crowed.

Ulric sighed in hungry relief.

They halted there, just over the rise, to make a fire and tear at greasy skewers of elk, jealously coveted. Red-Eye had decreed that they should be rationed, so that the store would endure for twelve days, while not denying any man his fair share. Ulric’s gut kept rumbling, but at least he was fed.

Later, the clangor of axes rang through the forest, vigorously handled by desperate men seeking a means of shelter. They began on the crest, casting down the thick, whorling trunks, hauling them back up the slope, clearing out the brush. Ulric nearly lost himself in the labors, but for the lingering specter of his demise. He wielded the long-handled axe as a demon would, making the squat, heavy head blur through the clinging dusk, hacking pale chips from trunks, sending bark spraying. He delved through the green wood, into the harder, darker layers at the core, until there was a snap, and with a piercing cry to the others, he would shift away as the trunks crashed on the ground, sending up a shrapnel of needles and broken twigs. The sicker men moved in, using their angled axes to beat at the branches, shearing them away so that they could erect a flaming pyre to soften the cruel, frosty earth so they could make it level.

By dusk, they hadn’t made much headway, just sat around the fire bleakly, staring at the embers. By dusk on the second day, they’d cleared the mound of trunks. Einar and Tyrfing would hunt in shifts, bringing back a few hares, a squirrel, even a badger for the pot. Knute had been a carpenter before he’d turned to war, and now, with the help of Grim and Ingvar, he began to set the foundations of the keep. Ulric lent a hand when required, shifting the rough stones, using a pick to cut a deep yet slender trench in the stony, burned turf, sweating and grunting. He was used to such hard labor, so each swing of the pick, each hand-numbing clang as it struck upon the starkly unyielding ground, was like a hum in his ears, a vaguely wavering din. He just did what he was told, heaping the rocks around the trench’s periphery, as high as his knees, and then he turned to other tasks. The logs needed to be shaped, pits for the posts required digging, and then, as ever, there was always the growling in his gut, the pangs of hunger.

Slowly, the keep rose. It was squat and ugly, a thing of pale, scarred timbers, smeared with redolent sap. Ulric and Einar helped lay the posts, a row of spars that would hold up the bark-covered roof. He would grasp at them, crusted with mud and lancing frost, a deep ache in his bunching, corded muscles as he wrestled them from the ground, breaking the adhering cloak of ice with his toe. Ingvar, growing haler by the day, and Grim and Thord would haul on the rope, jerking up the spar as Einar and Ulric forced their shoulders under the deadening burden, snarling, baring their teeth, boots sliding out from under them as they vigorously thrust their grimy, reeking furs against the towering chunks of wood. They finished the center row, gasping for breath, unable to shake their ache in their sore, shivering bones, and then they moved onto the supports on either end, while Tyrfing began to dig out a pit for the hearth.

The days came and went, some bringing snow, the lash of cold ever scouring their aching backs. Tyrfing and Einar returned with a deer, and they enjoyed a meager feast, ever conscious that they were surviving hand to mouth. Ulric kept near to Knute, whose hacking cough hadn’t gone away, though his color was returning. Ingvar, Grim, and Thord were swiftly raising the sides, stacks of mud-chinked logs laid on top of one another, fastened by slender pegs and notches, while the others worked on the roof. Ulric would clamber up the crude ladders, sturdy branches lashed together with their scarce ropes, and help to lay the beams, two long spars that ran the length of the keep, and then another pair, set further down on the slope to lend further support. He would sit around the fire at nights, too weary to speak, to weave tales as they’d once done as scarlet, flaming gold, and gilded russet leaves descended from the trees, his last, waning memory of the land that had come before, every aspect entwined with a murmur of sorrow, the vaguely whispering lays of the departed.

Now he was lost in these cruel, burning wastes of ice and snow, a captive of his selfishly acquired dreams, run through with the harsh skeins of a dense, unfathomable conceit. He would sit by the fire, trying to remember what it was like to be warm, drawing the edge of his knife along some chunk of birch with long, even strokes, watching the thin, honey-hued strips flake off in the embers, blackening and curling as sparks caught hold, a tiny plume of smoke wafting into the sky. They needed more pegs. They needed more food. They needed to find the bones and flee, but for now, he did what he could. He scoured away bark, rounded the sides, shaping and dreaming of home, and a golden goblet lying on the flames. Before, we were just men, he frowned, peering at the downcast features of his comrades, grimly etched with suffering, limned with writhing shadows. Now, we are harder, our hearts locked away in a chest, curses ever on our lips, defying not only the gods, but fate itself. I regret my choice, but I must embrace it, for we are the hunters of bones.

There was a desultory hush, broken only the crackle of the fire, the gust skirling past his ears.

Come day, they began laying the rafters. Knute was ever cursing and shouting, for they were nearly done, and he knew that eager, transcendent desires could only lead to a grim demise, the work of hasty hands betraying its master. Ulric took the lash of his tongue, caught up in a wakeful solemnity, and labored under a strange, ruddy sky, carrying the shortened spars up the ladder, laying them over the beams and taking up the mallet that hung from his belt, pounding in the pegs. And then, when that was done, he took up bundles of hard, knobby bark that Ingvar had peeled away, helped to heap them over the roof so that the snow would be turned away, leaving only a notch for the smoke to escape, grayly dyeing the dusk.

There was a screech of a kestrel, echoing high and clearly over the skies. The thwap of a shred of canvas, fraying under the biting onslaught of the wind, desperately trying to reveal some dire portent.

Ulric glanced around, saw Tyrfing, long and spare, gazing up through red lids. Grim, a fist clenched around the hilt of his sword, the other tucked deep in the crease of his arm. Knute, the contours of his face vaguely skeletal as he turned a rusty adze over in his hands, and Ingvar, bent over on jutting stump, pale face in his hands, desolately regarding the debris of chips strewn over the glutinous, slowly solidifying muck. Einar, back turned away, searching the trees as he fidgeted with his bow. Thord, choking on his own phlegm, jerked his cloak tighter around his shoulders, neck sinking into the filthy furs as might a turtle. Agnar, fumbling with the bent, dented, sooty cauldron, murmuring a prayer through his hedge of whiskers. Ivar Red-Eye, long, lank white hair lashing around his face, red eyes slowly widening, his cheeks strangely convulsing, jaw twisting as a pink tip of tongue peeked out from the scar of his mouth, ran over his slender, wormy lips as might a milky viper considering its prey.

And now, he sighed, the wait begins.

[Ulric]

Creak, went the roof, and creak went the beams, as though protesting the biting gusts that hurled vainly against the squat walls, surging through the cracks, threatening to sweep away the scantly laden strips of bark. Do you get up? Ulric wondered, peering through the murky chamber through red, sandy lids, or do you close your eyes, try to stay dreaming when the wolves are ravening at your door? He sought to burrow deeper into his furs, coughing faintly at the acridly hanging smoke, but dreams eluded him yet again. He couldn’t sleep. And why not? He wiped at the crust over his bleary eyes, blinking away the specks as stared at the vaguely heaving, loudly snoring heaps of pelts that each represented a comrade. The embers of the fire pit were fading, leaving the chamber frosty and dismal. We have no herds, no forge, no plow to force through the stony, frozen ground. I am sustained by dreams, and yet, they deny my embrace, for the cruel yoke of my duty bends around my neck. I must find my spear.

Ulric rose, pushing the furs from his chest, with a creak of joints to rival the hanging rafters. Here we are, he thought, scratching the back of his head, the patchy beard that enveloped his jaw. He reached for his cloak, fastened it with the bone clasp, and taking hold of his spear, ducked through the fur that was draped over the entry. The icy fist of winter blasted his face.

Agnar glanced up. “Bit early,” he rasped, shifting the unstrung bow that rested on his knees, throwing a chunk of wood on the remnants of his fire. The man’s face was colored by the red hue of the rising dawn The watch, what a vain, terrifying concept that is, Ulric frowned.

“Can’t sleep.”

“What’s wrong?” Agnar chafed his hands, spat a gob of phlegm that presently froze near his boot. “Caught the itch, have we?” He laughed harshly.

“No, not that.” Leaning the spear upon his shoulder, Ulric fumbled with his belt, stubbornly refusing to remove his glove as he jerked his trousers down slightly, sent a spray of urine hissing over the ground. He cursed, tucking his sadly withered prick back into his trousers, and then scuffed at a drift daubed by mud. “The day we left, I went to the canals, just sat by the waters, gazing at myself in those dark, desultory waters, thick as soup around your ankles. I had one of the coins, and I turned it over in my fingers, absently thinking of how many people had felt it cold upon their palm. I wondered how many of them had rubbed that faded symbol, stroked the worn edges. In the end, there’s no value in coin.” Ulric glanced at Agnar. “I know what you’re thinking. If you have coin, you can buy cunt, swords, power. I know that, too. I want that, but the thing is, there’s no meaning to those vague, unfriendly discs of metal when you’re dying. I keep my purse tucked in my furs, covetously packed with coins. I can’t spend them, and lacking that purpose, they have no meaning. I’d rather be wealthy in warm fur, in joints of meat.”

Agnar snorted, picked frost from his long, gray-prickled whiskers. “Those coins are the only thing we’ve got, though, ‘cept for our arms, our pride, and our names. I look around, and no man has a family to go back to, just ashes and empty memories. I don’t even have honor. I have nothing, so that when I find a shard of purpose in my grasp, I hang on and don’t let go. I don’t do it for my purse, y’see. I’m not here because it’s a means of resting my weary bones. If I wasn’t here, where would I be?”

There was a harsh raving of crows, the tawdry beating of wings. The gusts made their cloaks swirl around their legs. “I’m coming to embrace that, too,” grunted Ulric. “In this world, the man that restively turns his mind to war can never go back, can never return to neglected furrows. That is his curse, for the longer you shed dreary runnels of crimson, the more you understand that our paltry lives are but a conceit, that fate simply does not care. If we didn’t war, we’d have no purpose. If we are to be men, let us be men. If we are to perish, it is already scribed, let the arrow sink into our backs, the sword into our hearts. I stared into the waters, and I knew. I knew that I had forsworn my life to a cause beyond my reckoning. If I was to march unto my death, let it be so. I’ve bided over twenty-one winters, and sent more men to that last, dread reckoning than I have fingers to count, and yet, I risk my body for a heap of graying bones, for the insanity of a man who inspires only fear. I suspect they are just a myth, that our bones are the ones that must be strewn through that barrow.”

Agnar fidgeted. “We do what we must,” he growled, flung another log on the fire, sending up a cloud of cinders. “You’re cracking, though. I can see it in your face, hear the doubt in your words. If you won’t stand by us, locking shields as the wolves leap for our throats, then you’re already dead.” The warrior drew a finger along his neck, scowling through his whiskers. “Don’t speak of these things again, d’you understand?”

“Aye.” Ulric gave a shrug, leaning wanly against the shaft of his spear as he clenched his jaw. “If the serpent’s head and its tail are at war, it must inevitably swallow itself up.” He tautly regarded the warrior, tears of cold leaking from his red limned eyes. Ah, the fetid grotesquery of my fever dream does not elude you, I see.

“You’re just as crazy as him.” Agnar cursed, was on the verge of speaking when his hulking frame went rigid, the words strangled away though he didn’t raise his bow. He sees, thought Ulric, prickly fear running down his spine, the vague dread of a cracking twig, a specter in the night. He fought the urge to drop into a crouch, staying erect as trenchant eyes scoured over the trunks, seeking a glimpse of the threat. He found the man, clad in furs, a hint of leather at his neck, bearing a short, curving bow, a painted quiver jutting over his back.

“He’s just a scout,” he murmured, casting around for any others, but the dense ranks of trunks were empty, the boulders hung only by dirty ice.

“No, a dead scout” rasped Agnar, drawing a shaft from the quiver at his leg. “Hold,” he cried, bow creaking as he jerked back the string, but the scout did not hold. He darted away, powder spraying from churning legs as the shaft hurled vainly past his back, breaking on a rock.

“Rouse the others.” Ulric flung away his spear, reaching for his axe as he swept up Agnar’s shield. Not thinking any further than the fleeing scout, he charged down the slope, boots thundering on the packed snow. Agnar did not protest, just made the cruel peaks ring with his cries of alarm. Ulric had the younger joints, so it was only right that he gave chase. By the time the door crashed open, he was already leaping over the rocks protruding from the stream’s icy waters, eyes glued to the scout’s back. He was catching up, slowly, inexorably, forcing his legs to crash over the snow, clouds of milky vapor bursting from his burning lungs. The wind lashed at his face, slowing him down. He felt the mad pulsing of his heart, as though rough bands encircled his chest, constricting his pursuit and slowing his cadence.

Then the scout turned around, gasping for a shaft, his mouth baring in a snarl. Shyke, Ulric cursed, brought up the shield. Hssst!

He lurched away, shaft quivering near the rim of the shield, yet when he when finally dared peer out, the scout was gone.

There was a quork of a raven, a mocking skirl of the wind against his hair. Desolately, he raised his chin to the pewter sky.

[Ulric]

Ulric bent over the shaft of his spear, furs heavy on his back, enveloped by dancing lances of shadows and the cruel lash of the wind. He kept scouring the night, leaning over to hurl another bundle of sticks on the raging fire, but as far as he could see, there weren’t any intruders among the swaying trunks. My only company is the owls, he thought bleakly, cocking his head at the mournful screech, and him. Ulric cast a nervous, sidelong glance at Red-Eye, who leaned back against the crudely erected logs of their paltry keep, sword laying over his knees, a slight frown on his pale features, which were peculiarly bronzed by the orange glow of the flames.

“Ivar, you can go back,” he ventured, shoulders bunching in a vague shrug. “They won’t get past.” The cadaver’s face raised, his eyes but ruddy sparks in the dark.

“You think so,” he rasped, a chuckle tearing up from the depths of his chest, though it was swept away by a spasm of coughing. Ivar convulsed, chest heaving for an instant, and then he sank back, frantic ropes of purple veins nearly bursting from the skin stretched tautly over his forehead.

“You dying?”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Probably.” Ulric gave a shrug. “You know, I could reduce the entire world to probably.”

“Your meaning?” The head lifted.

“There isn’t any.”

The remark clung for a moment, and was then borne away like a scrap of leaf, a speck of dust lost in the sands of forever.

[Ulric]

The fingers of a fading, crimson dawn began to vanish over the crags, yet the whispers of inky night endured. There was nothing for the sour feeling in his gut, the unease that grasped at his spine, turned his bowels to water. What is this but a fever dream? He prowled though the gray trunks, staring up at the bare branches, no longer furled by red and yellow leaves, heart burdened by the desolation. He thought he discerned the vague flutter of a moth against some elusive, transitory flame, a crackle as the wings burnt and it spun to the firmament. We dare, yet who are we? The dregs of crushed grapes. The offspring of dismal seed, a squirt of redundant fecundity in some paltry, reluctant cunt. The bards always wept for us. Then we slew them, because dead men desire no tales. They are dead, but not buried, for the victors handle the quill that scribes the scrolls of history, that colors the distant future. They just want to fade away, like so many wraiths in an inky fog, the graying bones in a barrow. The last, rattling gasp of corpses on our necks. Stale, putrefying flesh, caught up in a cloying embrace, rusty heads of spears remaining where the shafts have been eaten away.

That’s fate, lad.

Speak up, my lord? Your tale is woven, whether you enjoy it or not. Your trencher is bare, do you not hunger? Scry with your eyes, discern over the tapestry all you wish, but the fading hunt of those skeins is not yours. The reavers have come for you, swept up by a biting enmity, ravening.

Drink up, and bear witness, for we go to our ends, and a red grin. The way cleaves before us treacherously. The crags jostle us, mock us, but we don’t listen. There is only our suffering. The packs on our backs, carving deeply into shoulder, bruising purple and black, the sum of meager dreams. And yet, we endure. Drink up, and let’s perish in a blaze of glory, conflagration of finery, a crucible that we forge with our own, aching fingers. Starkly unrepentant in our abysmal daring. The meaning confuscated, garbled and twisted by a curling worm of trenchant tongue, the soft touch of betrayal. Her name is woman, the seductively beckoning venom that wrenches at our loins. Before her, we are as fools, clods of rich, dark loam crumbling through her fingers. She is the tiger, and we her hapless prey.

The dawn was red.

Do you fear?

Clack, went the spear, striking the away a knuckle of frost, and then the turgid waters emerged from their icy mask.

Ulric knelt, jerking away his gloves, and drank with a shiver, red fingers numb and shaking from cupping the frigid draught. Such rhetoric, but these waters are yet cold, he scowled. The poets can kiss my arse. The wind skirled, as ever. Harsh, cruel upon his face, dark eyes regarding the broad backs, bows and spears, heads bundled under fur cowls. They were so distant, strewn a dozen paces apart, and a hundred. Each man, together yet shackled by an implacable, the bleak, desperate desire to hide the contents of their souls, writ on chapped faces. Empty, perhaps? Ulric cocked his head, peeked curiously at Tyrfing. Or was it Einar? Ever meager, we the men perish, just disappear on the winds, so the bone hunter can be born. Ah, the vagaries of prophecy. They give purpose, but they take souls. And yet, though my heart aches, which of us can glean the end?

There was the weak cackling of a crow. A starveling, perhaps, just like the wolves. The carcass of the elk would’ve fed many others, but it was probably buried deep under the drifts, to appear in thawing decay. The wind did not slacken. The fabric of bark was fraying, flayed by so many claws. Ulric brushed a hand against the trunk, though he couldn’t feel anything through his thick gloves. Bears, not yet fled to their caves to bide through the cruel harrow of winter. Long departed, perhaps frozen to a rigid jape. They wouldn’t be honored by any songs, either. The thought was errantly comforting. Just a cast of the knuckles, eh? The bones don’t care. They scatter.

Ulric took a firmer grasp on his spear, waving it to his left, and then around to his right, dark eyes scrying the jutting tangle of boulder, covered by tangles of cracked branches, encrusted by lichen. Nothing, just tracks long forlorn. He scowled, not wanting to be out here, hungering for the warmth of the fire to suffuse his bones. Even so, he couldn’t keep from wondering if the bone they sought were just an allegory, if the cage of ribs that warded his organs was the end of the path.

Do you crave me? Does your heart melt to caress my cheek, tender fingers stroking down the ridge of my spine, my bare arse? Don’t feed me your deceit. You don’t care. You’ve never cared, but I cherish you anyway. You are my fever dream. You, the mold of tallow to my wick, the spark that ignites my flame.

I won’t say anything.

Just fade away.

Regular steps brought him further from the keep, no more than a crudely erected shack among the towering peaks, the vast, empty forest that crowded them. The drifts crunched under his foot, a grating of the spear driving through the icy crust. There was a shout, a cry torn from cracked lips, and then blare of a horn. Einar. He cast around, saw Tyrfing and Agnar with their bows, Ivar tearing the sword from his hip, Grim clashing axe upon shield, a fiendish grin poking through his whiskers.

The spear raised, he fumbled for his shield, bringing it around to hang on his elbow, quick, harried steps carrying him nearer to the others. And then he saw the others. The figures in furs, led by the scout, bearing spears and bows, great bulwarks of hide that confused their sturdy frames and daubed faces with the trunks.

They didn’t engage, just rose from pits dug in the snow, from behind logs, just over a dozen in number. “Not yet,” a snarl carried on the cruel gusts, no doubt from the tongue of Red-Eye.

And then, emerging from a hedge of spears, there was a huge, hulking brute of a man, clad in fur and leather, face obscured by the skull of a bear, crafted into a crude helm. He neared, bearing a hide shield, a long, curving blade, with nasty, regular notches that rendered it half saw, half sword. “My name is Gored Rath,” he growled, thumping a fist on his chest. “Who leads you?”

Up close, his eyes were gray, terribly gray, and a long, pinkish scar ran across his face, making a cleft in his nose. Gored Rath, Ulric felt a grin creep over his face, Ivar Red-Eye.

[Ulric]

They joined with a wary hush, a coarse drone of whispers. There were eight of these barbaric warriors, at least that he could see. They did not speak, just watched over the rims of their bulwarks, barbed shafts left in quivers. The hues of their face paint were mostly grays, whites, and shreds of blue, the eyes pale, hair drawn back under fur helms, or shaved into knots. Their jaws were as iron. They are hard men, Ulric grunted, casting his gaze over their faces. Harder than us, maybe. Red-Eye and Goren Rath were set apart from the others, their legs splayed over a downed birch, speaking intently and gesturing, an infrequent curse torn over the gusts, pocking the drifts with a promise of war. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.

Ulric was weary. He was cold, and hungry, too, but the languor of his heart was ever the worst, sapping his resolve, taking away the spark in his breast. Do they have wives? Babes? Again, he went over their faces, desperately seeking to glean the answer from their eyes, but he could discern nothing. The dismal sorrow was rising in him. The walking corpse, barely even human. Do you love, my feral brothers? Do you grasp what is yours tightly, and never let go? These peaks are too cruel. They mock us, with every, skirling gust. They tempt our greedy hearts, and murder us. Just another, pathetically departed soul for the beaks of crows, the lonely suck of worms.

What keeps us apart, I wonder?

Einar, who’d been closer, and had the keenest ears, came up to him then, breaking his somber thoughts. “Keep your eyes on the giant,” he whispered, stroking his bow with gloved fingers, the other clutching at the quiver at his hip. Ulric didn’t speak at first, just studied the brute. Goren Rath.

“He’s big,” he grunted, absently tearing off a chunk of gray bark, beads of amber sap clinging to the rough surface.

“Apparently he’s some kind of war leader, sent by their chief to deal with us. Hunthar, that’s who I think he spoke of. Can’t hear too well, what with the wind.” Einar gave a shrug. “They want to see what we’re after.”

“How many?”

“Don’t know, but there’s probably just as many back at their huts, and some women and spawn, besides. I hear they came here from the sea, maybe a few decades ago, which means only the elders may have knowledge of our kind. I’d say refugees, driven from their lands, maybe by a blood feud.”

“Novallas,” Ulric said quietly, a wry grin cast over his face. “Always wanted to go there.” These few have been drug through the coals, descended into savagery. Don’t you know that’s us?

“Ivar is desirous of a treaty, and despite the look of him, I’m sure that huge bastard shares his wishes.” Einar stared down at his bow, looking over the string nervously, hands no doubt shaking, sweating under the heavy gloves. Fear is ever our curse, isn’t that right?

Dark eyes swept the throng, regarding the gaunt, ruddy cheeks, the clench of jaws, the taut jump of eyes. They were sullenly reluctant, discs of frosted bronze, of pewter and cerulean china, that concealed what lay behind. We wear the mask, then, he grunted, with a nod at the daubed faces. Though for some, they are not so unfamiliar. They let us act how we must, not how we would.

Go on, you fiendish pipers, play the whirl of our deceit.

My heart does not weep.

“They can’t stand against us,” Grim was growling. “We should fight, take their women, their food.” Invgar looked as though he was going to shyke himself, his face wan and drawn, hands clutching at the haft of his axe, perhaps to keep them from shaking. Agnar kept his distance, though it was clear he wanted to go to Red-Eye, to guard his back if Goren Rath sought to swing that vast, menacing cleaver. Thord was staring down one of the strange warriors, spear angled slightly forward, the fidget of his fingers showing that he wanted to change grips, so that he’d have it ready for throwing.

Tyrfing just grunted. “Just wait, see what happens.” The hunter knelt over a jumble of boulders, adjusting his swords. The cracked leather sheaths scraped against a tangle of stiff, frozen heather.

Ulric was bereft.

Tearing his gaze away, he peered at the sky, though he felt a forlorn gasp trace warmly against his cheek. The gods don’t care, he thought bleakly. They don’t know the cruelty of our burden. They don’t share our chains.

Did you expect aught else? The mock of laughter. Ever worse, for it was in his own head. The skeins of dour incredulity, unraveling before his eyes. Harshly, the crowded him, taunted his fate. The pipers, it was they. The lance up his arse, the wily proposal in his ears.

No, never. Ulric turned over his axe, taking in the spike, rising from the nub set at the end of the shaft, the wicked, curving edge. The gods never care, yet they die even then. They might, just might, perish in a crunch of iron. The thought did not bring any solace.

Come, reach for your barbed shafts, he thought, lowering his painted shield, so that the silver inlay of the bone clasp that fastened his fur cloak, tugging it against the ridge of his chest. Come, let us break bread, share salt, for later the bloody hearts surely beckon. There can’t be harmony as long as we bear iron. If I want what you have, I must step over your corpse. If you are swift to anger, the light can fade so rapidly from my eyes. That is our curse, you see. To endure, we must fight. There is no straying from the cruel tragedy of our demise. That was ever the fate of man.

The end comes unto us all, you see. The pipers play because they must. The ferryman is every watchful. The river dark, and the lady, too.

Pray not for a red dawn, for though you are weary, and forsake your gods, your love... we endure.

Never forget.