Robert Low - The Whale Road

Illugi shrugged. 'Warning? Curse? A request to knock? I can hardly even try to work out what is in pieces.'

`Latin,' I offered, running my fingers over the sigils. 'They say this is the tomb of Spurius Dengicus, khan of the Kutriguri. Carried here to be buried under the eye of Rome by his brother, Rome's friend, Ernak.'

`Spurius Dengicus? That's Roman, not Hun,' said Eyjolf, whom everyone called Finnbogi, since he was from those lands.

Illugi, who knew a few things himself, answered: 'They gave him a proper name for his tomb, doing honour as befits his status. But no respectable Roman family would want their name associated with a steppe lord, so the Roman chiefs found a family that had died out, only the name remaining.

`So it is that all adopted Romans are called Spurius,' he finished.

And so it was. Nowadays, of course, anyone who is considered a shifty lot, not quite what he claims to be, is called Spurius in the Great City.

Ànything else we should know?' demanded Einar, with a pointed look at Illugi. Ànything that will actually help us, that is?'

I frowned and traced the worn letters. `There's something about not disturbing his rest,' I offered.

With perfect timing, there came a distant wail from inside the dark opening, a wolf of a sound that set everyone's hackles up. Men backed away; even the ones on the step heard it.

Òdin's arse,' snarled Bagnose suddenly, `what is happening to the sky?'

Most of it seemed to have gone, eaten by a towering wall of darkness. Even as we looked at it, yellow lightning flickered and the wind rushed at us, like the fetid breath of a dragon, lashing us with a stinging rain filled with grit.

`Thor's goats' arses, more like,' shouted Steinthor above the sudden roar of wind. Men yelled and huddled. Those on the lower steps started to go down, those higher up pushed those behind.

`There's no shelter there!' bellowed Einar above the sudden howling swirl of the wind. Ùp here, into the rock.'

They staggered up and Gunnar Raudi, with Ketil Crow, bent to hold the timber frame, frantic—as were we all—that it would topple, or be swept away and leave us stranded up here. Thunder cracked; the yellow heavens roiled and Illugi Godi stood upright, staff in one hand, both arms upraised.

Àll-Father hear us!'

`Move your fucking fat arses!' screamed Ketil Crow as men stumbled up the steps and across the ledge and into the dark opening like a line of frenzied ants.

Àll-Father, hear us. Send your winged ones to bind the wounds of the sky. Ask Thor why he rides his goat chariot over us. Lift us from this field of battle . . .'

A man, caught off-balance by the wind, shrieked his way into the chasm, disappearing beneath the waterfall.

Àll-Father . . .'

`Save it, godi, no one is listening to you,' snarled Einar and spat into the dust and mud-brown sluice of rain. 'Run, if you value your life.'

And I ran, limping, heedless of the pain, into the dark opening of the tomb.

Inside, someone had sparked up a torch, but the band huddled as close together as possible in the half-light of a stone passage, shivering, wet, cold in the sudden chill of stone. There was a taste of old dust and bones in my mouth.

`Well done for the torch,' Einar panted, coming up with Ketil Crow and Gunnar Raudi, the latter hauling the rickety timber bridge after him. We paused, all sweat and gleaming eyes in the dark, as another of those low, mournful moans drifted up from the light at the other end of the passage.

Light from a torch none of us had lit.

The storm grumbled. Einar pushed his way through the packed mass of us in the narrow passage and peered to where the yellow glow was.

`Well,' he said. 'Such a light in a dark place always means there is gold there, as anyone knows.' He turned, his grin startling in the dark. 'At least it means someone is home. Perhaps they will offer us hospitality on a stormy night. Ale and meat and women.'

The laughs were forced, though, and he moved on, stepping boldly while we cringed and waited for the springing spear or worse.

Nothing happened. We followed, cautiously, out of the passage into a wider area, part natural cavern, part construct. An arch, made from Illugi Godi's liquid Roman stone, led through to where the torch burned brightest and I thought to point it out to the priest—then saw his face, anguished, dead-eyed. He had called his gods and heard nothing but anger.

Shields up—those who hadn't lost them in the panic outside—and blades ready, we crept forward.

Beyond the arch, we all stopped. There was an even wider area, flagged with great squares of stone. The middle squares were bisected lengthways by small ridges, only just raised above the surface, and where one large square of stone should have been was an opening, from which came a faint torch glow.

More light, guttering in the wind hissing from outside, spilled from the red torch held by Hild, who was hunkered next to the opening, head cocked like a curious bird.

As we came in, there was that echoing groan from below and she turned and looked at us, a beautiful, beatific smile set in a face milk-pale, below eyes as black and dead as a corpse. Everyone saw it and came to a sudden halt.

'Hild . . . ?' I asked. She turned those eyes on me, without losing the smile, then looked down into the darkness, holding the torch high.

`Walk only on the raised ledge,' she said in a harsh voice. 'Beyond is a door, barred now. It leads down and round to where Dengizik sits with his warriors. Do not step off these ridged ledges or, like Boleslav, you will pay the price for violating Dengizik's last fortress and lie prostrate at his feet.'

There was another whimper, which I now realised was Boleslav in agony. Hild rose then, in a fluid, fast movement like nothing she had ever done before and thrust the torch at where Einar stood, pale under his crow-wings of hair, which stirred in the heat from the flames.

Ì led them down, then left while they gawped, slipped back and barred the door on them. Only Boleslav was left here and I let him come to me, as he did once before. Only this time I kept my legs closed and my feet in the right place, while he did not.'

Her laugh was cracked. Dry-mouthed, sweating, we all peered down the great square hole into the room beyond. Torches flared and there were crowds of men, I saw.

`There are hundreds of them,' muttered Bersi, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand.

`Those are Dengizik's soldiers,' Hild said harshly. Tigfus is among them now, trying to work out how to get back here. He has seen Boleslav fall.'

`So he's trapped?' demanded a voice: Wry-neck, I recognised. 'Good. Leave him there. When the storm blows out, we can leave this gods-cursed place.'

`What of the treasure? And he might manage to climb back up through that hole,' demanded someone else.

Bersi snorted and spat. 'Let's come back in a few weeks,' he said, 'and see who is left and who has been eaten.'

`No!' Hild's voice was the flat of a sword struck on stone. She quivered as with a fever, but there was no white to the eyes she glared at Einar and her pointed finger was like a blade. 'Kill Vigfus. We agreed. Kill Vigfus and all his men. Then we go to Atil's howe.'

Einar nodded. No one spoke. He stepped on to the narrow ledge, no wider than the palm of his hand, and, lightly, gracefully, took three quick steps and was across.

Swallowing, I took the torch from Hild, staring at her. She stared back and I had to look away from those eyes, like beads of jet. Behind them lurked . . . something else, something even darker.

Ketil Crow was equally graceful; Wryneck, after a quick wipe of his dry mouth, shuffled waveringly across and then I followed, seeing figures below me and the sudden spark of tinder. One by one we crossed.