Fargoer (11 page)

Vierra got up and looked around her. The glow of the fireplace had evened out to a reddish ember, which only brought a little hue of light to the dark house. The sinister shape of the master was just a black shadow, half lying on top of the table. Vierra quietly sneaked closer and noticed he was asleep. There were the leftovers of yesterday’s feast on the table: a couple of chickens, skins of a ham and the bones of a large trout.

The knife she held on her back started to talk.

“Take me and strike deep. Now is your moment.”

Last morning she would have obeyed the order, but the warmth that had been found in her heart woke up another voice, which rebelled against such a vile act.

The knife’s voice was cold, metallic and strong, and the emerging warmth in her had no chance to subdue its will. Her hand moved shakily behind her back and coiled around the handle of the thick-bladed knife, one dirty finger at a time. How familiar the feel of that handle against her hand was. The knife rose up like a thought, ready to strike, and the green eyes stared the hunched figure with an icy gaze. The master snorted in his sleep and Vierra instinctively jumped backward, knife still held up high.

“Not to gray ground, no. I will sleep with a sword and kill, kill them all.” The man raved in his sleep with a weepy voice, and his hands alternately clenched into a fist, like holding a sword’s hilt, and then flopped open. Vierra stopped to listen; she had never seen the master like this.

“I killed in the west and in the east. Everywhere. I will go to the halls of the heroes,” the master yelled, continuing his delirious dream.

Vierra’s confusion disappeared and she stepped back to the table, intending to finish what she had started.

For such a large man, the master vaulted up with amazing speed. His half dazed vision searched for something in the gloom, but then brightened and saw Vierra beside him, knife held up high. A glimmer in his eye told of understanding, which led to a fast conclusion.

“Show me what you will, Oak, but this woman will not kill me.”

The man leaped toward the woman and struck at her face with his fist. Normally Vierra would have just stood there and taken the blow, because it was pointless to run from an inevitable destiny. To his surprise though, she ducked and dodged the incoming blow, thrusting her knife forward at the same time with both hands. The blade sunk a span’s length into the master’s chest. Vierra twisted the weapon to one side with all her strength, and with a crack it opened a gaping wound where it had just been struck. The slave woman had momentarily gotten back her fiery will. The fangs of the wolf were revealed again.

The Viking warrior who had gone through countless battles could not be slain with a single thrust, no matter how grievous. He punched with his left fist aiming for Vierra’s temple. The blow was so heavy that if it had met its target, it could surely have ended Vierra’s life. However, she instinctively held up her shoulder and the blow landed there. Nevertheless, it struck her far back, all the way to the tamped ground floor of the house. Her shoulder burned and tingled. She shook her head, dazed, her eyes frantically searching for the master.

Her gaze found him standing immobile like a black colossus, the blade still protruding out of his chest. Vierra crawled away, a primal panic washing over her. The master should be dead, anyone should be dead after that kind of stab. The red spot on the chest of the master’s handsome linen suit grew, until it filled almost all of the front of the garb. The racket had finally wakened up Ambjorn, who got up clumsily and noisily, with no idea of what was happening.

The master did not see Ambjorn, he had eyes only for Vierra. For Vierra, and for the blade still sticking out of his chest. He yelled with a terrible voice.

“Why! Now I will go to the gray land of the shadows. Even though I waged war for all my life in strange lands, and I deserve to go the Halls of Heroes.” He let out a maniacal laughter. “Do you think you can leave? The Oak will not let you, the forest will not let you. We will meet in the gray halls.”

Ambjorn stepped from the back of the room and finally mastered himself. The master fell to his knees as streams of blood trickled from his clothes and to the floor. His fading eyes noticed Ambjorn.

“Strike me down, man, give me a sword and strike, so I won’t go to the eternity of women and perjurers.”

Ambjorn did not move.

“I cannot. I have never killed a helpless man, nor a hospitable host. That would surely bring ill luck.”

The master fell on his stomach and the knife sank up to the hilt into him and the red tip of the blade erupted through his back. Despite this, he was talking.

“Helpless, huh. I will kill all of you with my bare hands.”

He started dragging himself forward on the floor with his arms, leaving a wide trail of blood behind. Even his warrior’s strength had its limits, though. He trembled and, his advance came to a halt. He exhaled once and went silent.

Vierra looked at her dead master, and the feeling of emptiness inside her did not change. Somewhere in the past she would have felt relief for the death of this tyrant, but now when it happened, she could feel nothing.

“We have to get out of here,” Ambjorn yelled and opened the door. He gasped the cool night air as if there was smoke inside.

The evening had turned into a grim night, and in the gloom of the house, the open door was like a window to the impenetrable darkness. A chilly night wind carried with it an invasive feeling. It was as if someone was watching them through the darkness, seeing them in the glow of the embers and feeling their movement on the hard tamped floor of the house. Shivers ran through Vierra.

“Close the door fast,” she said and wrapped her arms around herself. Ambjorn did not need telling twice. “The Oak and the forest won’t let us go,” Vierra continued ominously, peeking involuntarily at the body which lay on the floor.

“Let’s feed the fire,” Ambjorn said curtly. He dug up large firewood from a box and threw them to the embers of the fireplace.

“Do not put too much or we will smoke to death.”

“I will rather die in light than in darkness. Where are the other slaves? We cannot leave them there, not now.”

“In the summer hut I think, but we cannot go out there.”

Ambjorn took a large branch from the box and wrapped some dirty linen rags he had found hung from the edge of the box around it.

“Is there grease in here?” he asked.

Vierra fetched what the man asked for, and soon he had made a primitive torch out of the branch, linen and grease. He lit it up from the fire that rose from the fireplace. It burned smoking and unevenly, but it burned.

“Show me the way.”

They stepped out of the door. Darkness attacked them and the little fire of the branch felt insignificant against its intrusive clutches. On the border of their hearing were whispers which the night wind carried within. No cruelty or atrocious act of craving of the master had been able to touch Vierra’s hardened mind lately, but those whispers made her neck hair stand up and brought cold twinges to the bottom of her stomach. She instinctively moved closer to the man and his light-bringing torch.

They stepped to the door of the summer hut and opened the latch. Alf and Oder were awake.

“What has happened?” asked Oder.

“Your master is dead, let’s go inside the house,” replied Ambjorn.

“The Forest?” blurted Oder.

“The Forest,” answered Vierra.

The sacrifice

“Let’s make torches for all of us and move in a line through the forest. God will show us the way,” Oder suggested.

He, Ambjorn and Vierra sat as close to the flaming fireplace as it was possible. Alf was crouching by the master’s body. It was impossible to tell from his face whether he was feeling joy, sorrow, fear or suffering. Maybe a bit of all.

Vierra looked at this silent man and a chill ran through her. That was the end of the road she was walking too. In the end, slavery led you either to death or to become like Alf, lost who knows where.

“You have seen yourself what happens to those who escape,” Vierra argued. “They do not get further than a thrown stone into the forest. And definitely not far enough not to be heard from here.”

“He got here,” Oder said and pointed to Ambjorn. “From the ones that tried to escape, none had put his faith in God. Everyone just believed in the demons and devils of this land. And that forest is filled with them.”

Vierra was silent for a moment. For a long time she had had a bitter thought inside of her. Her tribe members would shun it, that she knew for certain, but the fear couldn’t fade it out completely. Now, for the first time, she dressed it up as words.

“I will not put my life in the hands of gods no more, be them those of South or North. We have to come up with something else. I’d rather even wait for the morning.”

Oder looked sad.

“Think about your child, if not yourself. I for one will go, and I’ll take Alf with me. Alf, make torches and pack some food into a bag.”

Alf lifted up his gaze and started to follow orders. His hideous face twisted into a satisfied expression.

“Can you show us the way you came here?” Vierra asked Ambjorn.

“I do not know. We were bear hunting when the sun blackened out and we were attacked by a group of indescribable... things, which I’d rather not remember.” Ambjorn shook his head. “I took a blow to the head and I wandered half-conscious in the forest, and I have no recollection of how I got here. I woke up from the edge of your glade.” Ambjorn sorted out the past events in his mind and kept his eyes intensely in the crackling fire. His gaze strayed to Vierra and remained there, staring at her thoughtfully.

“It is madness to wait, I will go when the torches are ready. I will not stay here for one more moment,” Oder spat out and hurried on to make his torches.

Vierra was filled with doubt. Entering the forest would mean death, and no god could protect them there. Her mind, that had woken up from numbness, was fighting to find an answer which could satisfy her moody, suspicious instinct. Her gaze circled the longhouse like a trapped animal. The woman stepped to the table, where stood a cask of beer, half full.

“You were not sane when you came through the forest. You were not sane when you drank the master’s beer.” Vierra looked at Ambjorn meaningfully. “Let us drink beer until dawn and leave at its first light.”

“By God’s name, what madness!” Oder blurted. “Make torches and come with us, surely with the four of us we can survive the forest with God’s help.” From somewhere he dug out the reed cross that he always carried with him.

Vierra grabbed the stein that lay on the table and filled it with the dark liquid.

“Do as you want,” she said and poured the stein’s contents down her throat.

Ambjorn hesitated, as Alf and Oder prepared to leave. Silently they gathered their gear and stepped to the door.

“This is your last chance,” Oder warned Ambjorn.

He stood up, but Vierra gripped his hand tightly and said: “Believe me, if you want to live.” Ambjorn stayed there, standing.

Alf and Oder opened the door and disappeared to the dark of the night. There were no goodbyes left behind nor yelled after.

Ambjorn sat to the table and took a pint. He filled it to the brink and while keeping his eyes tightly on its foamy top, drank all of it with one gulp.

“Do you remember what happened when you drank with the master?” Vierra asked.

Ambjorn did not answer immediately.

“No.”

Second pint followed the first one, and third one the second. Where before Ambjorn had become more talkative because of the drink, now it turned both of the imbibers inward, and no more words were traded in the night that surrendered slowly to the morning.

Vierra’s head was shaking and she got up to try if she could still stay on her feet.

“Shall we go?” asked Ambjorn. He held the edge of the table tightly as he got up.

“We shall,” Vierra answered curtly. “Should we burn the house?” she added.

“Yes. Let it burn.”

They took with them their steins and the cask, and stepped out the door. The impenetrable night had given way on the eastern sky, from where the daybreak was making its arrival. The forest waited for them looming dark and threatening, and the Oak Vierra did not dare to look at.

They had spread the fire from the fireplace with wood and soon, dried with decades of smoke, the old longhouse was ablaze. As a yellow torch it lighted their way when they turned toward the dark forest. The strong drink churned inside Vierra, driving waves confusion and nausea over her. Even despite that she could not ignore the forest. Its challenge rose against them, gloomy and ancient.

Instinctively a hand found another hand, body another body; as if to find safety. Lifelong friends wouldn’t have walked closer to each other than they did. Fear, greater than just that of death, drove them together. Vierra and Ambjorn looked at each other for a moment, and aiming toward the glimmer of sun’s first light they then stepped into the forest, in unison, one step at a time.

The journey was a nightmare filled with confusion, where strange tree-like shapes reached to grope them in the dark. Everywhere around them the forest was whispering in its own secret language, scheming and plotting against them.