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  Valgard quickly averted his eyes, seeking the broken bodies of the king’s warriors, then glancing sideways at the light.

  ‘Odin,’ he spat.

  The runes in the bag glowed white-hot against his skin and words bubbled into his mind, and just as the heat was becoming unbearable, cold relief flooded from his fingers as ancient rhymes spun from his lips. He could feel the bodies of the trolls ahead of him and the power of the frost flowing from his fingers and into their spines, spreading throughout them with every breath. Reinvigorated, Botolf and Ormslev pushed against the physical force of the heat.

  You can beat him—

  —he’s an old man—

  —you deserve this—

  The voice hissed in his ear, insistent, urging him on almost like a lover, until Valgard, swept away on a wave of dark desire, ceased to be in the world and became just consciousness, free of physical constraint . . . and finally, the beast rose from the lake in his mind.

  It was beautiful, and terrible: powerful square jaws and a low brow, with thick bronze scales leading away from a gaping maw filled with sharp, curved teeth. Emerald-green eyes were set deep in a flat skull sitting on top of cords and cords of muscle that pulled the rest of his body, flowing and dancing, adder-like, ripping through the hole in reality. In the distance somewhere he could feel Odin’s consciousness, holding fast, but weakening in the face of Valgard’s belief.

  He deserved this.

  He had finally reached the point where a lifetime on the edge of the world, a lifetime of hurt, derision and scorn, had given him the power to push back – and he was going to push back hard. He could feel the point of the grey-haired man’s walking stick tearing into the flesh of the trolls, into his flesh, but he was fear and cold and death and he didn’t care.

  Then, suddenly, he felt reality’s pull again and he flailed against it, thrashing like a caught fish, but he could do nothing. Half-born, Valgard was pulled back into the world.

  Odin’s voice was loud and commanding. He was speaking to someone: ‘Join me, King Olav! Command the men to attack! We can overwhelm them!’

  The king.

  Valgard blinked, and tried to make sense of the world again. Improbably, King Olav had somehow made it to Odin’s side and stood there, ghostly pale, clearly favouring his right side. His brave fighters cowered behind Odin’s fire-shield.

  ‘Who are you?’ the king shouted.

  ‘I have many names,’ Odin shouted back, ‘but we can talk about that later.’

  King Olav’s face turned bright red and words tumbled out of him. ‘THOU SHALT NOT WORSHIP FALSE GODS!’ he screamed. ‘BEGONE!’

  The world drew its breath, and held it.

  Watch out—

  —the voice hissed at him.

  A blink of the eye, then—

  Valgard turned away just in time as the wave of force washed over him, knocking him back a step. Dazed, he reached for the words – but they weren’t there. He couldn’t speak. His head swam.

  Odin turned towards the king, sadness in his eye. ‘Time was, in battle I could be sure of a man’s belief,’ he said, almost quietly. ‘But if you will not allow yourself or your men to believe in me, Olav Tryggvason, there is nothing I can do for you. ’

  And in the moments between the blinks of the world, Odin the Almighty stuck the torch in the ground and walked off the battlefield.

  Consciousness flooded back into Valgard’s mind like cold water on a hot day. He shook his head to dislodge the last of the All-Father’s spell and searched for the minds of the trolls.

  They were there, groggy but recovering.

  Destroy—

  The thought was in his mind, but another one crept in.

  —most of them—

  Destroy most of them.

  Botolf reached for the long torch and knocked it over. The others were already moving towards the cowering soldiers.

  Valgard saw two shadows in the distance, running downhill like their life depended on it, but then the screaming started and he knew what he had to do.

  *

  All King Olav could hear was his breath and the thumping of blood, always the blood, as his feet decided what was best for him and sent him hurtling away from the slaughter, down the hill, caring not a second for his broken ribs. He waded through the snow, tripped and rolled, screamed in pain, rose and ran again.

  A hundred yards over to the left, Hjalti ran alongside him. The younger man was faster, and when the king got to the bottom of the hill Hjalti had already rounded up two horses. They could hear the tortured screams of the men they’d left behind, along with the roar of those . . . things . . .

  ‘Here, my King: we’ll ride back to Trondheim, tell the men, get some fires start—’ Black blood followed the words as King Olav’s skinning knife dug into Hjalti’s stomach and up, up towards his heart, until the hand holding it was almost inside him.

  The last thing Hjalti saw was King Olav’s face, glaring at him.

  ‘Don’t act like you didn’t expect it,’ he snarled. ‘You led them to my church. You brought this upon us. Our Saviour may forgive you, but I won’t.’

  He pulled the knife out with a wet slurping sound and Hjalti collapsed, coughing up blood and clutching his stomach. ‘Please . . .’ he wheezed.

  King Olav took the reins of the nearest horse, looked at the man at his feet and felt nothing but contempt. He opened his mouth to speak, but a wrenching scream drifted from the top of the hill. The horse threw its head and snorted.

  ‘You’re eager to go,’ the king muttered. ‘I understand.’

  He clambered up onto the horse’s back and rode off towards Trondheim, putting the hill and the corpses of his men far behind him.

  *

  Valgard could still smell the stench, even in the cold. He looked down with detached curiosity at a form that had been human a while ago; now it just looked like it had been dropped from a great height. The trolls had struck King Olav’s terrified men down where they stood, knocking some out and breaking others: a quick, brutal attack. They’d fought to the last man and would no doubt be going to Valhalla eventually – but not just yet.

  He had a use for them.

  By his feet was a warrior, only half-conscious, staring up at him. The man’s face was bloodied and his left leg was bent at an odd angle. ‘Please . . .’ he muttered, eyes wide with fear.

  ‘What – do you want mercy?’ Valgard sneered. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I will deal with you according to your conduct, and by your own standard I will judge you. How does that sound?’ A vicious kick turned the man’s words to whimpers.

  The old words stung Valgard’s lips.

  Rise, brave warrior

  Born of darkness

  Fear and blood

  Your sworn companions

  Walk in winter

  War’s compatriot

  Raise your blade

  For Loki’s promise

  The man’s body twisted and warped in the snow as the darkness flowed into him. Muscles coiled and twisted and knotted, ripping apart and reforming. The warrior’s mouth flew open and his face turned red in a silent scream. Valgard saw him, saw through his clothes and his flesh and his meat into the very core of him, and envisioned the frost creeping up through the man’s feet into his shins, past his knees, the big muscles in his legs, thickening them, turning them a shade of blue as the flesh somehow died and came to life again. He was being reborn into something stronger. Something bigger. Something better.

  The change was complete.

  The warrior lay in the snow like a squeezed rag, but there was already a different look to him. He was thicker and broader across the chest, but stiffer, less human. He was more like someone’s idea of a warrior. His skin was tinged with blue.

  Jori approached and looked down at the soldier. ‘Take hi
m?’

  ‘Yes,’ Valgard said, and the gangly troll hoisted the man over his shoulder without difficulty and carried him over to a group of slumped fighters. Next to them sat Ormar, looking bored.

  Valgard counted. That made twenty-four.

  On to the next one.

  TRONDHEIM, NORTH NORWAY

  DECEMBER, AD 996

  Snow hung off the eaves of the great hall in cascades of soft white curves. Inside, the fire roared and the old songs echoed off the walls, sung in full chorus by those who could and shouted by those who couldn’t. In the right-hand seat, Gunnthor leaned over to Storrek. ‘Listen to them. Makes me feel almost thirty years younger, this,’ the grey-haired man said.

  ‘What, only seventy?’ Storrek shot back, grinning. His features had been softened by untold jugs of mead – he’d stopped counting after six. ‘You’re doing the right thing, old man,’ he said. ‘You’re making them feel at home without all that God-crap.’

  ‘Keep it down,’ Gunnthor growled. ‘You never know who’s listening.

  ‘Right, right,’ Storrek said, sobering up a little. ‘Keep it down.’

  Across the hall, Einar Tambarskelf watched the two men converse across King Olav’s unoccupied seat, but the stench in the hall was becoming too much for him, and he pushed his way towards the door.

  Outside, the clouds cleared, revealing the black sky covered with twinkling dots. The night air was crisp and clear and the smell of blood had blown away. Red stains still marked the ground in front of the longhouse, but the nightmare was over.

  ‘Einar.’

  The whisper was borne on the wind, softly, like a thought.

  ‘Einar!’

  Einar Tambarskelf turned to find the source. Something in the shadows by the corner was moving . . . His dagger was in his hand and poised to throw when King Olav emerged, hands outstretched, palms facing forward.

  ‘I am putting my faith in the Lord,’ he said in a soft voice that only just carried on the wind. ‘I am hoping that you are not one of the conspirators.’

  ‘. . . what?’

  ‘Gunnthor, Storrek and Hjalti, all in on it – some of their men must have driven the animals in towards us, because the hunt was a set-up. They were going to kill me. I only just escaped, but I am wounded and in no shape to fight.’

  Einar’s face contorted in fury. ‘Bastards,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll take their eyes out,’ he continued, feeling for a bow that wasn’t there.

  ‘You will not,’ King Olav said. ‘There are too many of them. Instead, gather sixty of our best men. When the traitors realise I’m still alive none of us will be safe. We’ll sail from here tonight, go back to Stenvik and return in force in the spring – we’ll leave them with too many mouths to feed; they’re bound to whittle each other’s numbers down. Meet me by the harbour. We’ll take Njordur’s Mercy.’

  Einar took some time to ponder his king’s words, but finally he spun on his heel and marched inside.

  King Olav resisted the urge to cough and stepped back into the shadow, holding his ribs. He couldn’t tell Einar what he’d really seen – he wasn’t even sure himself. The throbbing ache in his side was the only real thing about it.

  *

  The moon had inched half a house-length across the sky and gone into hiding behind a thick bank of clouds when they appeared at the harbour: about sixty of them, all of them soft-spoken and quiet in the manner of men who know when they need to be.

  The king met them on the pier by the Njordur’s Mercy. In moments tasks were assigned, and six of them went into the town to fetch rations. King Olav had selected twenty men to prepare sails and get the ship ready when he noticed the blossoming light of a torch between nearby houses on the approach to the harbour. When the guard turned the corner and saw the quiet activity, the first thing he did was to shout a challenge. The second thing he did was to claw, coughing, at the arrow wedged in his throat. Einar drew again and the second arrow struck the guard in the chest. His torch fell and fizzled out in the snow.

  Very soon after, the six reappeared carrying two stuffed sacks each, and with that, the Njordur’s Mercy was ready to sail. The rowers pulled and the big ship lurched forward, but with each stroke she moved more smoothly until she was gliding across the water.

  King Olav glanced back at Trondheim once before moving towards the bow of the ship and staring into the dark up ahead.

  ‘Look!’ One of the men hissed and pointed to the sky.

  Up above, the last of the cloud drifted away to reveal a blood-red moon over Trondheim, as raw as a fresh wound. King Olav noted with some satisfaction that everyone he saw formed the sign of the cross.

  *

  Valgard crested the hill and looked down on Trondheim.

  The scent of the king’s fear-sweat still hung on the wind, shoved in his face by the wind coming from the sea, making Valgard lick his lips. The rich, salty taste of it thrilled him. There was something particularly delicious about King Olav’s fall, about him realising that he was in fact very, very mortal. And now he, Valgard, was about to walk back into Trondheim.

  This was going to be fun.

  ‘Skeggi, Botolf, Ormslev,’ he snapped, and like trained animals the three trolls stepped forward. Compared to the others, they looked massive: Botolf was reaching seven foot now, and Valgard wasn’t sure he and Skeggi could shift Ormslev if they tried. They’d do. They’d do just fine. ‘Take what you need and go to the far corners of the town. Move as quietly and quickly as you can. Don’t break more of them than you have to. We will need them.’

  When he finished talking, the trolls stepped back.

  ‘Ormar and Jori, you come with me. And you,’ he said pointing to the figure on the left. ‘Especially you.’ Around him there was movement as bodies shifted in the dark.

  There’ll be a lot of tracks in the snow, Valgard thought, but then again, soon that won’t really be a problem.

  Chapter 9

  THE SOUTH OF SWEDEN

  LATE DECEMBER, AD 996

  The man who called himself Erik and claimed to be the son of Hakon Jarl, chieftain of Trondheim, cleared his throat. He was a good half-head taller than Forkbeard and had the bearing of a man who’d spent his life in hard places. A lean, tough frame and broad shoulders, straight back and sharp features were complemented by black hair with streaks of grey pulled into a thick riding braid. Behind him was the faint hiss of snowflakes on open flames.

  ‘King Olav has left the North!’ he shouted. ‘He is coming southwards, and he is coming fast!’ Chatter spread out like waves in a pond from the man at the edge of the light, but it was interrupted by Forkbeard, who had grabbed the nearest man’s shield and axe and was now banging them loudly together as he stared at the assembled warriors.

  Slowly the men’s mouths stopped moving.

  Forkbeard smiled and waited until the gathering was absolutely silent. When he spoke, he spoke quietly but clearly. ‘My friend from the east’ – he nodded to Jolawer – ‘will be glad of the interruption, because he was clearly losing.’

  Shouts erupted on both sides, and Ulfar struggled to contain his grin. ‘That’s how to win a crowd,’ he whispered to Audun, but Forkbeard hadn’t finished.

  ‘However, all things must come to an end. Return to your camps. We march tomorrow morning.’ Reluctantly, the rows of assembled men broke up and sauntered off to their tents. Forkbeard, Jolawer and a small selection of their chosen men remained.

  ‘Do we stay?’ Mouthpiece whispered.

  Ulfar was about to reply when Sven answered the question. ‘Ulfar. Audun. Over here. Others – get lost,’ he said.

  ‘There you go,’ Thormund said, hurrying to get to his feet. ‘No good comes of named men talking.’ The old horse thief disappeared into the dark, Mouthpiece following on his heels.

  Emerging from the dark, a line of men formed behind Forkbeard
and Jolawer to match Erik’s chieftains. Oskarl stood there, calm and solid, next to Audun and Ulfar, his height matched by Alfgeir Bjorne, while Sigurd, Karle and Sven were joined by Thorkell the Tall. Sigrid had stepped up next to Forkbeard.

  ‘Well met,’ Forkbeard said.

  ‘Well met,’ Erik said.

  ‘When did King Olav move?’ Jolawer said.

  ‘News travels slow in winter,’ Erik said. ‘Perhaps ten days ago.’

  Jolawer shot a sharp glance at Alfgeir; Forkbeard didn’t move, but his shoulders tensed. The kings were lost for words, caught unawares at the gaming table.

  A sharp voice cut the silence. ‘How many men?’ Sigrid said.

  ‘Sixty,’ Erik said.

  ‘That’s one ship,’ Sigrid shot back. ‘He brought forty ships to Trondheim. Do you think we’ll believe you?’

  ‘Why did he leave?’ Forkbeard added. ‘And who’s in charge up there?’

  ‘There have been no travellers from the North for a while,’ Erik said, and Ulfar felt his insides twist. This was bad: very bad indeed.

  Erik continued, ‘These men’ – he gestured to the silent group behind him – ‘are from the mountains, some from the deep valleys inland. They agreed to ride with me and put their names towards raising an army to take back Trondheim.’

  ‘But you don’t know what’s up there,’ Sigurd said.

  ‘No,’ Erik said. ‘We don’t.’

  Forkbeard looked over at Jolawer, then Sigurd. Finally he looked at Sigrid. ‘If Trondheim’s less important to King Olav,’ he said, ‘it is less important to me.’ He turned again to the young King of Sweden. ‘Jolawer?’

  ‘We’re going to need some information,’ the young man said. ‘We’ll meet at first light tomorrow.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Forkbeard said.

  Audun looked at Ulfar and whispered under his breath, ‘Could this be—?’

  ‘Not now,’ Ulfar said quietly. Forkbeard, Jolawer and Erik were already heading off with their retinues, but Sven and Sigurd had lagged behind, deep in quick, quiet conversation with Oskarl.

  The two friends found themselves standing alone in the trampled snow and flickering firelight, the marks of a thousand men littering the field.