Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

Sigurðr handed over the leather strap, and when it was in his fingers, Einarr twisted it around and said, “It looks just like the day I wrapped Sigurðrsnautr with it.”

Sigurðr stared intently into the fire, unable to meet his friend’s eyes, as Einarr slipped the arrowhead onto the necklace. Then he held it out for Sigurðr to take.

Sigurðr started to reach for it, but then changed his mind and bowed slightly instead. Einarr hesitated momentarily, and then slipped the necklace over Sigurðr’s head. Sigurðr could feel the hand brushing up against his hair, perhaps even grazing the nape of his neck. After all his years of imagining Einarr’s fingers there, they finally were.

They paused a moment, eyes on each other.

Sigurðr leaned in a bit, and Einarr did not pull back. They were so close. Sigurðr cleared his throat, which felt clogged with boiled ale and fungus, and his voice cracked when he released the words he had waited so many years to say. “Ég elska Þig."

Einarr narrowed his eyes a little, but otherwise his expression did not change.

Sigurðr leaned in a little further, and still Einarr did not pull away. So Sigurðr closed the remainder of the distance, settled his mouth to Einarr’s, and kissed him.

Einarr did not react. Sigurðr read this as acceptance, and kissed harder.

Then Sigurðr felt Einarr pull back, followed by an excruciating thud at the side of his head. The blow sent him toppling off the bench and he looked up just in time to see Einarr jumping forward, leg swinging. The kick caught Sigurðr full in the ribs and drove all the breath from his lungs. Using his sword arm, Einarr drove one punch to the center of Sigurðr’s stomach, and followed that with more. The attack was uncoordinated, heavy on frenzy and short on strategy, and mostly the blows missed.

Sigurðr tried to retreat but Einarr drove his shoulder into his chest, sending Sigurðr sprawling into one of the lamps, knocking it over. He tried to use the momentum to roll away, but Einarr followed with more wild fists. So many blows, so fast, and everywhere-into Sigurðr’s jaw, off his shoulder, to his throat, and at the most tender place on his chest where the arrow had entered. He could barely breathe, both from the violence of the attack and the fact it was happening at all.

The baby. Friрleifr was now howling in the dragon crib, aware that something was terribly wrong in the world he barely knew. Svanhildr had jumped up and was screaming at her husband to stop, and Bragi stumbled off his sleeping bench, confused both by the fight and by the ale that still ran through his veins. He could not quite control his legs, and the floor seemed to lurch like a boat deck during a storm.

Einarr was beyond any understanding of the yelling voices. Whatever demons the berserkjasveppur were making him see, he was fighting them as if they were the only real things in the room.

Sigurðr did not fight back with the conviction that one would have expected. His injuries limited his physical ability, true, but it was more than that: when he saw the stumbling boy Bragi and heard Svanhildr’s screams, he simply lost the will. He became aware, not consciously but nonetheless completely, that his moment of weakness was a betrayal of those closest to him, the family that had taken in a confused boy and given him the life of a man. In one lustful moment, Sigurðr had crossed the unspoken line he and Einarr had spent more than a decade constructing.

So Sigurðr allowed his body to go limp; he would let Einarr punch that line back into existence.

When Svanhildr saw Sigurðr give up, she was afraid for his life, and turned away from her path to the baby’s dragon cradle. She grabbed at Einarr’s right arm when it was drawn back for another blow, and her husband automatically spun around with his left fist. It connected heavily, sending Svanhildr sprawling headfirst into a pile of lumber.

Bragi knew better than to engage his father directly; a boy who still played with toy swords was no match for a Viking. The beating of his uncle Sig terrified him, but Bragi could also see a greater danger: whale blubber had spilled out of the knocked-over lamp and ignited a pile of wood shavings, and the flames were spreading.

Bragi began yelling that the room was on fire, but even this was not enough to bring his father back. Einarr’s fists, still inaccurate but unfailing in endurance, continued to rain down upon Sigurðr’s body and there was nothing in the attacker’s face but fearful rage.

The benches along the walls caught fire and those flames reached up to grab at the birch twigs that stuck out of the walls. There would be no stopping the blaze and-worst, Bragi saw-it was headed towards his mother, who lay motionless where she had fallen. There was blood leaking from her forehead, into eyes that were no longer open.

Bragi shook his mother, but without response. When he realized she could not be woken, he hooked his hands into her armpits and tensed his legs. He pulled with all his strength, but he was still too drunk and too small and he could only jerk her haltingly, a few feet at a time. Still, he would get her out. He had to.

As Bragi dragged Svanhildr towards the door, Einarr continued his merciless attack. Sigurðr could no longer have fought back even if he had wanted: his face was bloody pulp, many of his ribs had snapped, and his legs twitched with each connecting blow. Still, he was able to spit a few words through his broken teeth.

“Fire, Einarr,” he sputtered. “Wife! Bragi!”

He kept repeating the words until they finally made it through. Einarr stopped his fists and looked around confusedly, like a man who did not know where he has woken up. He saw that Bragi was at the longhouse’s entrance with Svanhildr but could go no further, stopped by a barrier of flames.

He bolted to them and kicked open the burning door. He grabbed Bragi and threw him out, but he could not do the same with Svanhildr-her unconscious deadweight made that impossible-so he lifted her over his shoulder and put his head down. The only way out was through; they might get burned, but they would live.

Sigurðr, lying shattered on the floor, saw Einarr and Svanhildr disappear through the curtain of flames and knew that he would never be able to follow. He could not imagine moving a few feet, much less the distance needed to escape, and thought: So this is how it ends. In flames.

The fire crackled around him like laughter, and he expected this would be the last sound that he ever heard. Then he heard the baby crying.

The edges of Sigurðr’s tunic were ablaze and his skin felt as if it was starting to bubble. With a handful of broken fingers, he put out those flames; he might have burned his hands while doing so, but he couldn’t feel them and it didn’t matter anyway. Blood seeped out of the corners of his eyes and into his beard, but he wiped it away and began to crawl towards Friрleifr’s cries.

Outside, in the glow of the longhouse, Svanhildr had regained consciousness and grabbed hysterically at Bragi. When she realized that Friрleifr was not with them, she threw her arms out and broke into screams. She began lurching towards the longhouse, and then it was Bragi who held her; he would not allow his mother to enter an inferno it was obvious she could not escape.

Einarr, his wits regained, also heaved his body towards the burning building. His heart urged him to burst inside, but his most basic instincts would not allow it. Unable to do anything else, incapable of moving towards the fire or away from it, he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. Svanhildr continued screaming at the burning house and Bragi continued to hold her back, until it was apparent that her rage was no longer directed at the building. The boy released his mother and she ran to Einarr, punching and kicking him until she dropped exhausted at his side.