Jerry Autieri - Islands in the Fog

"Didn't Ragnvald tell us everything we need to know?" Gunther asked. "He's hired some farmers to supplement his own men. We only need to kill them along with Hardar."

Gunther's crew laughed but Ulfrik shook his head. "I value Ragnvald's insights, but I need to know what is happening today. This is my one chance, one I cannot treat lightly. Someone must go to Nye Grenner."

Ingrid cleared her throat. Ulfrik ignored her, still suffering the embarrassed sting of her words. "Would not the best person for this be you? Who knows the land better?"

"I'd lose my temper the moment I set foot there. I'm the worst choice. But someone should be sent immediately. Gunther, someone from your crew would do. One of my own men will guide him."

"I've got a boy on my crew who's like a shadow. I can send him if your man won't give him away."

"I'm sure Ragnvald would lend a small boat, or someone could spare one for the right payment."

Gunther frowned. "I'm supposed to grow wealthier on this adventure. Whatever I spend is coming out of your take."

"I'll take my share in Hardar's teeth." Laughter rippled across the gathered crew, but Ingrid winced. Ulfrik fell silent. The shame only lasted a moment. "Come now, Lady Ingrid. He's no longer your husband. You're planning this attack with us, you'll remember."

She waved her hand before her face, her own blush forming. Satisfied, Ulfrik turned to Gunther and explained how to best approach Nye Grenner and where to hide. Men came and went as he detailed the plan. Ragnvald later joined and agreed to help secure a small boat for the job. After most of the morning had passed, all was ready and Gunther's man rowed off with his guide.

Ulfrik and several others joined Gunther to wish them luck as they departed. If the gods were with them, they would make landfall by night, or so Ulfrik had planned.

"I hope the sea remains flat," Gunther said absently. "Or that leaky barrel you claim is a boat will capsize."

"Ragnvald said it was all he could get us on short notice. We have to trust to the gods." Ulfrik heard the insincerity in his own voice.

"You'll pay the man's gold price too, if he doesn't return. So you better make good with the gods."

Once the small boat disappeared from sight, they headed back toward Ragnvald's hall. Ingrid blocked Ulfrik's path, stopping him and Snorri. Gunther smiled and continued on with his men.

"So we just wait?" She shifted her weight to one leg and folded her arms. Though Ingrid grew more beautiful as bruises faded and flesh refilled the bony spaces of her frame, Ulfrik found her less attractive each time he saw her.

"I don't expect to wait more than three or four days. Once we know the situation, we attack."

"What about our families?" She looked between Snorri and Ulfrik, her eyebrow arched.

"As I've said, we can't search for them now and risk announcing ourselves."

"I know where they could be, or might have been."

Ulfrik's eyes widened. "Then why not say something earlier? Where do you think they have gone?"

"The Irish monks. They keep a monastery not too far north."

"I know it, the only holy place of the new god without any riches. Why would they go there?"

A breeze caught Ingrid's hair, blowing it across her face. She tossed her head, and looked north. "My hus …, I mean Hardar, tried to marry my daughter to a man named Erp. She was very young at the time, but even then headstrong and prone to running from trouble. She stole a golden broach from me, traded it for passage to the monastery. She begged the monks to hide her."

"Did they?"

She smiled, wistful and distant. Her voice dropped as she answered. "For a short time. But they knew better than to anger her father. The monks wanted her to become a Christian. We found her before the monks could work their spells to bind her to their god."

"So why go there now?" Snorri's voice was a gruff intrusion on Ingrid's dreamy tone.

"Because no one else will help her. The monks help those in need, as that is the sacrifice their god demands along with taking no women to their beds."

"Now that seems more of a danger," Ulfrik said. "How long can even a holy man resist a beautiful woman?"

Ingrid smiled strangely at him. It caught him so unexpectedly that he felt a chill. She laughed lightly at his discomfort.

"We could check the monastery while we wait for the return of Gunther's spy," Snorri said. "It's a short journey, and worth it."

Ulfrik agreed. The three of them resumed their walk to Ragnvald's hall. The silence felt awkward, and Ulfrik could not resist another question. "What happened to Erp?"

"He died." Ulfrik and Snorri stopped, but Ingrid continued a few paces before turning with a wry smile. "Of fever, of course. Halla was so plain about her dislike of Erp that he gave up on her and I agreed the marriage deal was best abandoned."

"And Hardar didn't force her?"

Ingrid shrugged. "Erp was my idea, not his. He felt she could marry higher, and bring him better connections. My father still lived then, if only in body and not in mind. He respected me more when my father lived."

They returned to the hall and shared plans with Gunther, who agreed to take them to the monastery. Ulfrik started preparations, hoping that Runa and Gunnar awaited him there.

"You really think you're going to find you wife and son?" Gunther asked as he helped Ulfrik aboard his ship.

"There is no harm in trying, and it sounds like it could be true." Ulfrik leapt the rails to land on the deck.

Gunther shook his head. "Maybe you should sacrifice to the new god to be sure. Burn some fish. I hear that's what the new god likes, besides gold and silver."

"The new god is like any other god. If we entertain him, he will reward us. If we don't, he will forget us."

Ulfrik stretched his back, the healed lashes still tender and sore. Gunther scratched his nose, then spit.

"From the looks of these lands, nothing but grass and rocks covered in bird shit, I'd say all gods have forgotten this place."

Gunther laughed at his wit, but Ulfrik gazed over the beach and did not disagree.

Hardar knew no hidden treasure existed. The torture would have wrested its existence from Thorvald. Now his head monitored the docks, freshly severed and placed on a spear. But better news had arrived, and Hardar now waited outside the blacksmith's forge. It was already splashed with blood from the last interrogation, and so became Hardar's slaughterhouse.

The day was uncommonly humid, and Hardar fanned himself as he waited. The whole village was silent, not even a gull squawked. He heard the struggling men long before they arrived down the dirt lane. His second, Dag the Sword-Bender, shoved a young man at spear point. An older man followed, held between two other hirdmen. They deposited the two before Hardar.

"You're spies for Ulfrik." Hardar did not need to ask, only to confirm. The two men looked up, the younger one nodding.

"Don't say anything," snapped the older man. Hardar felt his stomach burn with anger.

"When is the attack coming? Tomorrow?"

"You'll get nothing from me." The older man raised his jaw and scowled at Hardar.

"That's fine. You can still help." Hardar picked up the hammer that he had used to break Thorvald's hands. "You two, put his head on that anvil."

The man scrabbled back, but the hirdmen held him tight. He sounded like he might be babbling about Ulfrik. Hardar did not care, as the younger man would reveal everything. The hirdmen shoved his head down to the anvil and Hardar smashed the man's skull. He screamed and flexed, but Hardar slammed again until the head flattened and blood and fluid plopped to the dirt floor. The body slipped to the base of the anvil and more gore gushed from the broken head.

He pointed the dripping hammer at the young man. "That was a mercy. You'll be tortured for days unless you talk now."