Deep Midnight

Page 51

 

  They came upon them then, the enemy. They were men, and they were not. They had the darker skins of the Mediterraneans and the lighter skins of the Northern peoples. They were not so many?perhaps a dozen, and there were women among them. They didn’t seem to need to stand on solid ground, but could move in the blink of an eye, rise to the air, disappear into smoke, or vapor, or air.

  Ragnor rushed forward in defense of the men. The enemy did not fight with weapons, but with their bare hands.

  And teeth.

  They were wolves, or could appear as wolves, men one minute, creatures the next. He came into the fray, slashing. Then he remembered the monk’s warning, and he went after the creatures with his sword swinging with a direct purpose, that of beheading the enemy. Two went down, three, but he found that he was fighting ever more alone because the Vikings were so quickly torn asunder by their foes. Four, five, six . . . and he stood alone, swinging in every direction, sword in his hand. He saw them coming together, forming a circle around him. Lean, thin, dark-skinned fighters in animal furs, then a tall man with the look of the North, a woman who might have come from somewhere in the East. . .

  They weren’t speaking, but they were communicating somehow. Closing the circle. He hefted his sword in a tremendous sweeping arc, trying to bring down as many as he could . . .

  Then they were upon them. He felt the agony as his flesh ripped. Blood seemed to rush before his eyes .

  . .

  And then darkness.

  He came into consciousness late the next day. He was on the ground, and his first thought was amazement that he could be alive. Then he felt a tremendous pain, and an agony of thirst. Gritting his teeth, he sat up and looked around. His men lay all around him.

  Mostly in pieces.

  He staggered to his feet.

  He felt some strength. If only he had water, he could pick up his dead. He could burn the remains. He could . . .

  Water. He needed water.

  He looked to the cave, and he looked to the sky. The winter’s frail sun now seemed to be merciless. He staggered to the cave, forgetting the enemy, determined to escape the sun. Inside, he found that the enemy was gone. Slumped against the wall he found Nari. She appeared dead, but she had not been torn apart. He looked at her more closely; she wasn’t quite dead.

  He looked for water. For himself, and to revive her. There was none.

  A rat raced by him. He stunned himself, reaching out with lightning speed, catching the rat, biting into it like a madman . . . draining it. He looked at the carcass with horror and threw it across the cave. But his strength and will to live had overcome his disgust He rose and left the cave to gather wood. As he started to build a fire for a mass funeral pyre, he heard the sounds of hoofbeats, and when he stood, waiting, his sword at the ready against whatever enemy came, he saw that the monks were grimly riding to the scene.

  Peter didn’t seem surprised to see him standing.

  “The others?” he asked.

  “They are as you see. ”

  “Burn them. ”

  “As I was doing. ”

  “Did you find Nari?”

  “She is in the cave. ”

  “I will see to her. ”

  Peter’s words disturbed Ragnor. “You will leave her be!” he thundered.

  “She must be destroyed. ”

  “They did not kill her. Perhaps she was taken to draw us out. ” Peter ignored him. Ragnor went after the monk, catching him by the arm, flinging him around to face him.

  An overwhelming desire to tear into the monk, rip him apart with teeth and bare hands, seized him. He gritted his teeth hard, in agony to stop himself from such brutality. “Leave her be!” he commanded. “We will burn the dead. ”

  With the help of the monks, the fire was quickly built. A deep sorrow seized him as he dragged the body of the great berserker Gunther into the flames. Torsos, limbs and heads were gathered. He could think of no words as the bodies went into the flames. The monks chanted prayers in Latin. He hoped that their supplications would bring the Norse to their own Valhalla. Yet as they smelled the burning flesh and watched the flames snap and crackle and rise to the sky, Ragnor suddenly grabbed Peter’s arm. “My brother. I did not bring his body to the flame. Did you see him? He must receive this funeral rite as the others . . . ”

  “The brothers collected all the bodies,” Peter told him. “Except that of the woman, Nari. ” Ragnor nodded, and when it was done, he went back into the cave for Nari. She stirred, and awakened, and looked at him gravely, shaking as she stretched her arms out to him. “I was so afraid. ”

  “You’re all right now. ”

  “I’m so frightened . . . ”

  He cradled her in his arms. “I thought you were dead. You were nearly thrown into the flames,” he told her.

  “But you saved me,” she said, and smiled. “Ah, Ragnor, in my father’s defense, you have lost everything.

  But we will build a world between us. ”

  He set her upon his horse as they rode back to the church by the sea. Nari wanted to remain in the sun, though it was growing dark by the time they returned.

  She could remember nothing of the night before. She could tell them nothing of their enemies.

  Peter sat with Ragnor, having him relive the battle over and over again.

  The monks brought food, fowl they had killed in the forest. Ragnor was ravenous; the meal did not end the hunger that seemed to be tearing into him. He knew that Peter was watching him, and as he eyed the monk in return, he again found himself seized with the desire to consume the monk.

  They had been in the church; he stood abruptly and went outside. And to his horror, he found Nari down by the water, seated on a rock, the body of one of the brothers dragged over her lap, his throat torn open. Nari looked up at him. Her lips were coated in blood.

  He wanted to lash out at her in horror, put her to death himself at that moment. But more than that. . .

  He wanted a share of the blood. The scent of it was a power unlike anything he had ever known. He rushed forward and pushed her away; he began to ravage the body himself.

  Covered in the good man’s blood, he staggered to his feet.

  Nari smiled at him. “There is another world out there. A world of pure power. Greater power than even you have ever known. ”

  He jerked her to her feet.

  “No. We will not live like this. ”

  She pulled away from him. “You think you’re so strong. You’re weak! You don’t begin to understand the gift you’ve been given. ”

  “Gift?” he said incredulously. “We are cursed!”

  She came close to him, leaning against him. “Help me, then. Help me. ”

  “There has to be a way . . . ” he murmured, then he shook his head. “Come. ” He drew his sword from its sheath and brought it back to the church.

  Nari cowered at the entrance. “I can’t . . . I can’t go in. ”

  “Then wait here. ”

  “You intend to destroy us. ”

  “I intend to give us Valhalla. ”

  He entered the church, taking his sword and throwing it at Peter’s feet. “Do it!” he demanded, shaking, his voice a roar. “Take my head, and see that I am burned to ash, and cast to the sea. Damn you, do it now! And Nari . . . you must see to Nari as well. Then set a flame on a dragon boat, and send our remains, together, out to sea. ”

  Peter ignored the sword at his feet.

  “I cannot,” he said.

  “Peter, don’t you understand, you fool. I just ate one of your holy men!” Peter shook his head. “Look where you are standing. In God’s holy place. I have seen you with the desire to ravage my neck throughout the day; when we found you, I knew that you were no longer one of us. But you are who you are, and even changed, you still have the power to fight evil. ”

  “You idiot, I am evil!”

/>   “You could not be here, not in my God’s house, if you were. ” Ragnor let out a cry of rage and strode from the church, determined to show Peter the truth. He meant to take Nari, but she was not there.

  The stupid monk! He would not believe, he could not comprehend the agony, the hunger, that tore at him. He strode straight amid the monks who worked calmly at their tasks, stoking a fire, chopping more wood. He let out a roar, a cry, a howl, ready to tear into one of them just to prove his own menace. But the monks stared back at him, unshaken.

  He turned and strode into the forest, then ran . . .

  And as he ran something happened. He was hunched, he was down, he was a beast, racing through brush and forest and trees. Then he slowed.

  There was a buck ahead of him in a lea. He crouched lower and began a slow, stalking movement through the grass. He attacked the creature.

  His hands had no fingers, just claws. He reveled in the fury of his attack, in the taste of blood.

  And later . . .

  The moon was full again. He rose, and he was himself, and he clutched his head in his hands, and wept.

  Tears did not come. His body shook with the violence of his agony, and in the end, he sat, and watched as the sun fell, and he felt a surge of power coming into him.

  Peter found him there, came to him, not afraid of the night, or of Ragnor.

  “You must destroy me,” he told Peter. “Look what I have done. ”

  “You’ve eaten a deer,” Peter said with a trace of humor. “I am fond of the meat myself. ” Ragnor shook his head. “I am one of them, one of the monsters. ”

  “You must come with me. ”

  “Where?”

  “Back to the church. ”

  Ragnor looked at him with amazement and then aggravation. “So that I can consume another monk?” Peter merely started walking. Ragnor swore and followed him, staying on the monk’s heels, as if in warning that at any moment, he might rip into him. But never once did Peter so much as look back.

  The area of the village and the church smelled of burning flesh. The brothers had cremated their own.

  In the church, Peter took Ragnor’s hands. “You will swear a vow tonight to answer to a higher power. ”

  “I don’t believe in your God. ”