M. Lachlan: Lord of Slaughter

‘You have two eyes now, boy,’ said Bollason.

‘I’m not a boy!’

Snake in the Eye snatched up Bollason’s sword and struck at the side of his head. The warrior had anticipated the blow and ducked, the sword sparking into the wall. Bollason dropped the rope and dived at Snake in the Eye, driving him to the floor of the tunnel.

‘Who are you? Who are you, old man?’ the scholar Loys cried out from down in the pool.

Snake in the Eye gave a great sigh as all the wind went out of him, and Bollason froze, lying unmoving on top of him.

‘There they are, all the pretty candles,’ said Snake in the Eye.

Bollason was quite still. Snake in the Eye wriggled from beneath him.

‘You don’t look right with a head on your shoulders, old Mimir, my friend,’ he said.

He stood and took out his own sword. Then he hacked off Bollason’s head. He gave the neck five or six good blows but still the head was not severed. The boy snorted in frustration.

‘If you were a better corpse, your head would come off more easily,’ he said. ‘Your head’s meant to be off. It doesn’t look right any other way.’

He walked to the rope that emerged from the water and looked at it as if he didn’t quite know what it was. Then he began tugging on it, singing out in a high voice,

‘Oh I am the fisherman,

And fish are what I catch.

Big ones, little ones, fat ones, thin ones,

In fish I have no match!’

Four or five pulls and a woman came almost lifeless from the water, her hands bound to the rope. It was all Elifr could do to keep silent. It was her — the one who had tormented his dreams, the one he had vowed never to meet because he knew he had loved her too strongly and that their love was cursed by the gods. His head pounded, his vision blurred. He wanted her so much but he couldn’t go to her. That way death came into his kingdom and the cycle of misery began again.

‘Now I know you too,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘Lady, we have met before. Well, it’s time for us to meet again.’

He pulled her onto the dry ground. The woman was face down, vomiting water, sucking in air in great rasps. Snake in the Eye turned her onto her back and hitched up her skirts. Then he undid his trousers and stepped out of them.

‘I think this,’ he said, ‘will prove once and for all I really am a man. And all my friends, my silver, shining friends, here to see me in my glory.’

He paused for a second.

‘This candle I see is not yours. Why do I not see you, woman? Two candles. Perhaps I should snuff them and see what corpses I find planted in this rich earth.’

The rope started coiling back through the water.

‘But wait,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘It seems I may have other fish to catch!’

The wolfman gave a shiver. He knew who the boy was, knew who killed without touching, knew who carried Mimir’s head for wisdom and had given his eye at the well. Odin, the dead god. Come to the earth to die, as the prophecy had foreseen. He’d been so near to being free of his destiny in the emperor’s tent.

Every instinct told him to attack but, though Elifr had lived as an animal, he was not an animal. The woman was there. If he allowed himself to be killed by the god, what would happen to her? She would be saved in eternal time, perhaps killed in this incarnation. But seeing her alive, so vulnerable, he feared for her and his resolve left him. He needed to defend her. But how, against a god? A ritual was impossible now in the waters, he needed more time.

Again the howl, fear given sound. There must have been another entrance, and the wolf was in. The god’s story was unfolding.

Elifr knew he didn’t have long. The wolf’s destiny was to kill him, the last stage in a magical conversion that would empower him to kill the god. He had to get the woman away. He mouthed her names as he’d known her before. Adisla, Aelis. What was she called this time? It didn’t matter. It was up to him to save her. How? Hide and then ask the well’s guidance when he had the chance.

Snake in the Eye was pulling at the rope, singing all the time.

‘O lady, rage at the ocean,

The storm-torn fields of grey.

But the ocean, it is heedless

Of anything you might say.

Your tears sit like diamonds

Upon your cheeks so pale and fair,

And the spray it sits and sparkles

A rainbow in your hair.

Your son is son of a father,

Dead and lost to the sea,

So lady, rage at the ocean

Then turn your eyes to me.’

With one final tug a shape emerged from the water that sealed the passage, a flash of white. A head.

A man stood up with a great cough. He bore a large wound on his cheek. The wolfman saw he was nearly as afflicted as the woman who lay half-naked and gasping on the floor, but he was a warrior and instantly mastered himself.

‘Ragnar, my fine killer!’ shouted Snake in the Eye. ‘I have spared your life once, but even for the service you did me you cannot expect such indulgen-’

There was the sound of steel on leather, a heavy exhalation and Snake in the Eye sat down. Mauger’s sword had gone straight through him. The boy grasped at the hilt as if he was afraid it would be taken from him.

‘I’ve had enough of your talk,’ said Mauger. ‘Speak to that.’

He bent to the lady and pulled down her skirts, checking to see if she was breathing.

‘You know the penalty for this offence,’ he said to Snake in the Eye.

The warrior picked up Bollason’s strange curved sword, which lay on the floor next to the dead man’s head. He weighed it in his hand for a second, and the wolfman knew he was about to cut off the youth’s head. Snake in the Eye sat glassy-eyed, gazing up at the man like a child listening to a story.

‘Ahh!’ A shout from behind Elifr. The wolfman glanced left from his hiding place. The scholar. The white-haired warrior forgot about the dying boy and ran down the passage towards the sound.

Again the howl — no echo, just forcing its way through the dead air of the caverns, flat and toneless. Was the boy the god? He had to die at the teeth of the wolf, yet the warrior had put a sword clean through him. The wolfman needed to get away from the woman. The wolf was coming for her, and if Elifr fled then he wouldn’t die as part of the magical transformation that would bring the wolf god to earth.

But he couldn’t leave her stricken on the cave floor.

Elifr ran to her. From up the passage, towards the well, he heard the warrior bellowing, screaming for Loys to show himself. The scholar had hidden in the dark. The woman was breathing. He held her to him to warm her with his body heat.

He wept as he did so.

‘I’ve tried to stay away,’ he said, ‘but the fates are weaving for us and they bind us too closely. Come on, wake up. You must run from him.’

Snake in the Eye still sat, impaled on Mauger’s sword, clutching the hilt. He kicked Elifr’s leg to get his attention.

‘Now no one can doubt me, for I have a mighty wound,’ he said. ‘I ask you, sorcerer, could you live with a wound like this? I tell you, you could not.’

Elifr picked the woman up, saying nothing. He had no idea where to go or what to do. His original plan seemed best — go to the waters, perform a ritual and see if the well would talk to him — but he needed to get the woman somewhere dry and warm. There was no such place here. He headed towards the well.

‘There are many candles here for snuffing,’ shouted Snake in the Eye. Again the howl. ‘I cannot go to the wall if he is here — he’ll see me. Let me stand. Let no one doubt me — let me stand!’

Elifr pulled the woman down the little stream. Only then did he see what was happening at the well. Loys clung to one side, cowering from the warrior. The warrior was not in the pool; he crouched at the entrance, looking around him in wonder.