Path of Gods Read online

  ‘I thought we should set fire to them,’ Valgard said conversationally, but no one replied. ‘Oh, but you’re right,’ he continued, ‘the weight of them and the cold will make it impossible.’ He paced, frowning. ‘We need a lot of . . .’ He paused and chuckled. ‘We need firewood. Botolf?’ The big troll stayed silent. ‘Tear down the longhouse.’ He allowed the thought to trickle out of his mind and take root in the trolls, and they started attacking the longhouse with their bare hands, ignoring the snow cascading off the roof. They started kicking relentlessly at the walls until the timbers started snapping and then passed the broken bits of wood from hand to hand to hand. A ring of wood soon formed around the pile of corpses.

  ‘Very good,’ Valgard said, and reached for the fire-steel in his belt. He shoved a starter bundle of dry moss in between two bits that looked likely to take and struck until the shower of sparks ignited them.

  The flames caught almost instantly, biting into the wood and licking the exposed flesh of a dead Viking. The tongues of fire hissed when the man’s frozen fingers thawed, and when the fat in his skin melted and dripped down, the red flame lurched and leaped, turning white-hot in spots. Thick tendrils of smoke drifted towards the sky and the scent of grilled meat gradually overpowered the smell of rotting flesh. The fire, insistent and hungry, travelled from log to log until the corpses were ringed by flame and shimmering air, and still the trolls flung more wood onto the pile.

  Stop

  Around him, all activity ceased as the trolls turned mutely towards the pyre. The heat coming off it was building, melting the snow around as flames caught clothing and hair, liquefying flesh and turning timber to ash.

  In the sudden quiet, Valgard reached out with his mind. He could feel them like fog on his skin – but they needed more.

  ‘Wood!’ he shouted, gesturing wildly, and his silent army went for the furniture, adding broken benches and long tables, whatever else was left, throwing everything onto the voracious flames. The bodies in the pile were changing in colour, warping and twisting like worms trying to squirm off the hook. They looked almost alive, Valgard thought. Well, almost.

  They were coming closer now: careful, cunning and hungry. He could feel the scent of battle and death drawing them in.

  ‘MORE TIMBER!!’

  Behind him, a troll bellowed and Valgard turned just in time to see Ormslev balancing the massive logs that formed the doors from Hakon’s great hall, the muscles cording in his neck as he held them high above his head. The huge troll pushed through the crowd, planted the end of the twenty-foot-long door by the foot of the flames and pushed, and the big slab of timber rose, then toppled over and crashed into the burning bodies, sending a cloud of ash spiralling into the air. Something collapsed in the middle of the pile and flames rose even higher, caressing the doors, then they latched on and the conflagration billowed and roared.

  Ignoring the blast of heat that had made the trolls step back, Valgard looked up towards the crest of the hill above Trondheim.

  There he was: the wolf.

  Come to me

  All of you

  Moments later, the hill was dark with shapes all heading towards the pyre.

  *

  The flames had died down soon enough and Valgard used boat hooks to drag enough corpses from the fire to bait the wolves and lure them in close. ‘We probably could have picked up wolves on the way, you know,’ he said to Botolf, ‘but I figured this was faster. And besides, burning things is fun.’ Behind him the last rays of light shone on a mound of bones, white against the black of charred corpses.

  Turning the wolves had been both easier and harder than creating the trolls: their minds were simpler, but the hunger was much, much worse. Every time he tried it had threatened to draw him in, and every time it had cost him a lot to pull away.

  ‘So now we rest,’ he said to the ever-silent Botolf. ‘And tomorrow we march.’

  The only answer was the sound of the wind and the crackling of logs on the still-smouldering pyre. Valgard fell asleep, contented and safe.

  *

  The slap that awakened him stung his cheek and a hand grabbed the material at his throat and hauled him up roughly. The man was tall – far taller than him – and terribly strong.

  You’re going too far, mortal.

  The voice filled his head and echoed inside his entire being.

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ Valgard said, hating himself for sounding meek.

  Didn’t mean to.

  The voice dripped with contempt and Valgard, suddenly terrified, looked up at the face of the man who held him up by his shift. Smooth-skinned and clean-shaven, Loki the Trickster God stared at him with undisguised hatred.

  You are drunk on power, mortal, and you thirst for far more than you can drink.

  Raising an army?

  And then what?

  Around them, Trondheim looked like a reflection in a lake. ‘We could march on Bifrost,’ Valgard said. ‘You told me to.’

  Don’t you dare, Loki growled. Don’t you fucking DARE tell me what I may have said! The grip around his throat strengthened and Valgard felt his heart pounding in his chest. I saved you. I made you. You are my creature and you will do what I tell you to.

  ‘I deserve this!’ Valgard croaked.

  Loki looked at him and laughed. Then the God of Mischief spat in his face.

  Everything went black. Then there was a spark. And another, and another. Like burning thatch, something in Valgard melted away and he could feel a great uncoiling, the snapping of a bone cage.

  In the clearing in the forest, the birds fled the trees. The pregnant silence was broken by a faint hissing, a few bubbles on the surface of the pond – and then Valgard broke free. For the first time in his life he was whole, powerful. He pushed himself thrashing out into the world, all of him, curving fangs and long neck and slabs of meat layered in powerful muscle over a sleek body. Four stubby legs with slasher’s claws gripped the ground, pushing him forward. The forest faded away and suddenly he was in Trondheim, towering over Loki, shrugging off his grip as if he were a child.

  Please—

  And that was the last thing Loki said. Then Valgard’s jaws closed on his midsection and snapped him in two.

  The feeling was . . . strange.

  The world tasted like an indrawn breath. He had a moment to stand, new-formed, a bull-monster on four legs with a long, muscular neck and a dragon’s head – and then the soul of a god flooded into him and Valgard lost his mind.

  Feast at a table . . . raucous laughter . . . red-faced shame . . . angry words . . . the taste of the air in a wooded grove . . . a blind god . . . shrieks of terror . . . the feel of cold water on scales . . . cold chains on wrists . . . pain . . .

  So much pain

  Valgard’s body morphed again, compressing and pushing in on itself as it reclaimed its human form. Trondheim appeared around him and the man in front of him slowly let go and lowered his hands. The man he’d thought of as Loki was no longer god-like: he was still tall, still handsome, but he was no longer terrifying.

  He looked at Valgard, and his eyes spoke of great weariness. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  Thank me? Why thank me?

  Loki looked at him and smiled.

  WHY THANK ME?

  As Valgard reached out for him, Loki dissolved into air, slipping through his fingers.

  *

  It felt less like waking up and more like coming back from somewhere. The first thing that hit him was the feel – no, the taste of the air. It had a bit of everything on it, strands and tendrils stretching out into the whole world and scents that made him feel like he could sense everything, everywhere, every creature, living and dead.

  Then he opened his eyes and he saw.

  He saw the trolls, suddenly wary of him, moving away like beaten dogs, except for Botolf, who dropp
ed into a clumsy bow. He saw the wolves, heads down, ears down, as reaction spread through their pack.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. His voice sounded strange in his head – smoother, somehow, more resonant. He looked over his assembled army and couldn’t help but smile; the change had taken hold of the men now and they were growing before his very eyes. The memory of what they’d once been pulled at them, stretched them, forced them to rise and become what they could be. ‘I do deserve this.’

  He stretched and rolled his shoulders, felt his fingertips and ran his hand through his long, lustrous hair. The power swelled in him, begging for mischief. ‘This is nice and all,’ he said to his silent audience, ‘but I think we can do better.’

  He closed his eyes and thought of a sound he wanted to exist in the world and a moment later hundreds of throats joined with a chorus of howling wolves.

  ‘LOKI!’

  Valgard smiled and turned to the South. ‘That’s more like it. Let’s go.’

  STENVIK, WEST NORWAY

  LATE DECEMBER, AD 996

  The clouds had cleared, a weak sun had crawled from its hiding place and the work groups had assembled. The men were eager to get to do something – anything – and the old man was proving to be a competent taskmaster. Finn was ashamed to admit it but he was all too happy to leave King Olav alone for a little while, and not at all disappointed to have handed over charge of the ship-building. From the moment they’d landed the king had been very wound up over something or other, and he’d got into the habit of looking over his shoulder all the time and praying at least twice as much as he did before – obviously something had happened in Trondheim, but who knew what? Finn knew he owed King Olav a lot, but it was beginning to feel a little like suddenly living with a caged wolf. He’d started feeling very poorly too, and had been keeping to his chambers; that had started about the time Finn had bumped into Fjolnir, so the king had not yet met his ship-builder.

  Finn looked down at the work party from his vantage point up on the wall. They scurried around the white-haired figure who’d set up shop just above a slope down to the water. He heard Fjolnir barking, ‘Over there!’ and pointing as a burly raider swung the timber he carried around and inched away from the water-line. He moved ten feet, then twenty, then thirty, as the old man kept bellowing, ‘Further!’

  They’d salvaged a load of burned planks from the old town and a team had been sent to hew down nearby trees – the old man had told them to grab the first ones they saw, for now at least. ‘Stop!’ he shouted, and said something more; his voice carried on the wind but Finn couldn’t make out the words.

  Then he cried, ‘No, that’s just right.’ He turned, looking up, and Finn raised his hand to confirm, although, from down here, the framework they were building looked nonsensical, with odd struts sticking out all over the place with no sort of obvious connection.

  ‘We’re done,’ Fjolnir shouted from below. ‘Time to go!’

  Finn rushed down the steps and out through the south gate. When he got there, Fjolnir had already rounded up a working team and outfitted them with ropes. ‘I asked Finn for the strongest men he had and he gave me you lot,’ he said to the hefty warriors with a cheeky grin, ‘so we’ll just have to make do with what you ladies can carry.’ The men smiled back and Finn felt a pang of envy. He had to work for every moment the men allowed him to lead them and it galled him to see men like Fjolnir, who did it effortlessly. ‘Right – let’s go while we have the light,’ Fjolnir said.

  They followed the northern road into the forest, and Finn had to suppress a wince wherever he saw broken branches or nicks in the timbers; every shadow held a memory of the raiders from Stenvik ducking and weaving through their home turf, leading their pursuers into the darkness. An awful lot of his men had gone into the forests around Stenvik, blades at the ready.

  Few of them had come back.

  And somewhere in this forest were graves for two grey-haired fighters: graves that he felt certain would be as empty as eye-sockets on a corpse.

  But with every step the ominous forest became less of a worry, for the white-hair up front not only appeared to know exactly where he was going, but looked like he was actually enjoying being out there. ‘Right, boys, time to get our feet wet,’ he announced from the front just as he extracted a foot with a wet slurp.

  The men grunted unhappily, but they still followed him out into the bog, trying to choose their footing carefully. Everyone knew stories of unlucky travellers sucked down to their deaths, trapped by one careless step.

  Up ahead, Fjolnir was walking like a farmer in his own yard. ‘Watch out left,’ he shouted a moment before one of the men shouted in alarm as the ground sank under his foot. The men on either side grabbed him and yanked him up; he was covered up to mid-thigh in bracken and stinking bog-slime.

  ‘Happens in a moment, boys,’ Fjolnir warned them, then he held up his hand and slowed down, and it looked to Finn for all the world as if he was feeling for something with his feet. ‘And . . . there we are!’ he shouted. ‘All eyes on me!’ Moving quickly, he walked to one side. ‘These spots here’ – he gestured to his left – ‘and here’ – some quick steps to the right – ‘are safe. Come on.’ He gestured peremptorily and the men moved cautiously into a wide line separated from each other by a space the width of three men. ‘There’s a bank here – feel for it with your feet.’

  Finn watched from the back as fourteen hardened warriors poked their toes into the marshland like children testing the water.

  ‘Now it’s time to get our hands wet,’ the old man said with a hint of relish in his voice. He bent down and plunged his hands into the bog, then turned to the next man in line and snapped, ‘Grab this!’

  Confused, the man pushed his hands into the bog and Finn saw the muscles in his arms bunching; he’d definitely found something. Fjolnir was striding along the line of men, and it looked like he was measuring with his feet. Then about forty feet further along the line, he stopped and dropped to his knees.

  He looked at the kneeling warrior. ‘Ready?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘HEAVE!’

  The two men strained, and very slowly, they pulled their arms out of the bog. Their hands clutched thick, slimy tendrils – no, ropes. As they pulled, the ground between them shuddered – and slowly but surely, a pair of long, water-slick planks rose with them.

  ‘There you go!’ Fjolnir shouted over his shoulder at Finn. ‘There’s your ship!’ Without prompting, the other warriors started rooting around, shouting commands at each other, and Finn backed up and watched as hewn timber was pulled out of its dank, smelly storage. Within moments a handoff line had formed and soon the timber was being stacked up on the bank of the marsh.

  ‘I talked to some of Sigurd’s shipwrights up in Trondheim,’ Fjolnir said, appearing suddenly at Finn’s side, and he had to bite down hard to hide how jumpy he was. ‘They told me they kept the wood they didn’t use in the bog so the cold and the sun didn’t get to it.’

  ‘Wise,’ Finn said, ‘but what about the measurements? Will it be enough?’

  ‘We’ll find a way to stretch it,’ the old man said, grinning, as the timber stack beside Finn grew steadily.

  The first men left with planks and returned with the rest of the boat crew. Finn found himself drifting along, half-dazed, with Fjolnir in the lead shouting commands, suggestions and well-judged abuse at the men, who answered in kind, punctuated with blasts of raucous laughter.

  An idea snuck into his head. We might just do this.

  *

  Down on the beach, hammers struck and axes sliced. Fjolnir was everywhere at once, instructing and encouraging, and under his watchful eye the wood quickly took on shape. He’d brought a carpenter with him, a thick-necked sort with a hammer and a shock of blond hair who kept himself to himself. Finn was enjoying looking down at them, scurrying around like ants by the wat
er.

  Einar Tambarskelf’s voice broke his gaze. ‘Well met!’

  ‘Well met,’ Finn replied.

  The young man took the steps two at a time and stood beside him. ‘He wants to know how it’s going,’ he said.

  ‘See for yourself,’ Finn replied.

  Einar looked down towards the beach, muttered something unintelligible and made the sign of the cross. ‘It’s . . .’

  ‘Yes it is,’ Finn said. ‘And it’s coming on quickly.’ He looked for Fjolnir to point him out, but the white-hair was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘It certainly is,’ Einar said. ‘He’ll be pleased.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Not well,’ he admitted. ‘Fever. Confusing dreams. Keeps talking about a grey man of some sort – we’re hoping it’ll clear soon, but to be honest we can do little but feed him broth and hope.’

  Finn spat over the edge of the wall. ‘Our Lord will guard him,’ he said.

  ‘He will,’ Einar said. He clasped Finn’s hand and left.

  ‘Broth and hope,’ Finn muttered. ‘That’s a fucking way to win a kingdom.’

  Below, Fjolnir emerged from behind the rising gunwales of the ship and raised his hand in salute. Finn saluted him back.

  Then he looked again: the old man appeared to be giving him some kind of signal: one hand raised, fist clenched, three fingers extended.

  Three days.

  *

  The longhouse smelled of sickness and Finn found himself wanting to knock out a wall just to get some air in. However, broth and hope seemed to have worked on the king because his health was definitely improving.

  ‘Is this the honest truth, Finn?’ he said, eyes wide open and a grin forming. ‘You’re not just telling me what I want to hear?’

  ‘No,’ Finn said. ‘I – we’ve – worked as hard as we could, for the glory of the Lord’ – he crossed himself– ‘and we believe we’ll be ready to launch her tomorrow.’

  The king stared at him for a moment, then he barked a harsh laugh and slapped his thigh so hard it made Finn wince. ‘Tomorrow! Finn Trueheart, you are a soldier of the Lord and your place in heaven is most certainly assured! And the sail?’