more like a vortex, a sucking piece of the night into which he would abandon himself.
‘Fenrisulfr.’
It felt right, as if for the first time he was saying his name.
‘They tied me as they tied my father,’ he heard himself say.
‘What are you talking about? We need to get to that ship.’ It was Bragi.
‘I will lap their vital ichors.’
‘Prince, you’re raving. At least lie down. You’re going to be hit.’
‘Fenrisulfr.’
Vali stepped towards the bouquet of the fight. It all seemed so delicious to him: the heavy sweats of fear and rage, and the blood, above all the blood, where the sweet arrow did its work, where the lovely sword cut and the pretty axe hewed.
‘The fetters have burst,’ he said.
And then the blood mire took his mind.
35
Vali woke. He was in fog. It was day and the mast cast long shadows into the air like the rays of the sun coming behind a cloud, but streaking the fog with darkness not light. The rays floated before him, a black web on grey, almost as if the creaks of the ship that broke the damp silence had been given visible expression.
He looked down at his clothes, or what was left of them. They were torn and dark with blood. There was a taste in his mouth — blood too. He felt torpid and slow-witted, as you might after a heavy meal in the afternoon sun.
‘Bragi?’ No answer. He had his hand on something soft. He looked to see what it was and screamed. It was a man, his ribcage torn away, his limbs broken, staring up from beneath him. Vali jumped to his feet. There was someone beside him. He started and was about to leap back, but there was no need. It was just his own shadow, a fog spectre cast by the sun, eerily solid. He looked about him. The boat was full of corpses ripped and mutilated in the most horrible way. Dead eyes stared at him; limbs reached for him; entrails snaked at his feet; the smell of death filled up his nostrils.
He staggered around, trying to get away from the dead men, but they were everywhere, from stern to prow. He ran in a crazy dance, lifting his knees high as if attempting to float above the corpses. He felt a hand clutch at his shoulder and he turned to see the wolfman looking back at him. Feileg was gaunt and pale, and a long deep cut ran from the top of his arm across his chest. Vali took a step back, tripped over a body and fell onto it. Repulsed, he tried to stand. The wolfman grasped him and pulled him to his feet.
‘How long?’ said Vali.
‘A week,’ said the wolfman.
‘I’ve been unconscious a week?’
‘Not unconscious,’ said the wolfman.
‘Then what?’
The wolfman looked at the bodies.
‘You?’ said Vali.
‘Not me.’
‘Why didn’t you throw them overboard?’
Feileg stared into Vali’s eyes.
‘I was afraid of you,’ said the wolfman.
The explanation did not make sense to Vali. The wolfman was easily his better in a fight and could do what he liked.
‘Why were you afraid of me?’
‘You are a wolf,’ said the wolfman. ‘I had to hide from you among these dead.’
Vali could not grasp what Feileg was saying. His head felt light and the day, even under the fog, too bright. He looked at the bodies. They were Danes, around twenty of them, and none had any signs of arrow strikes or sword cuts. Rather, their wounds were ragged and torn. One man had half his face ripped away, and it looked more as if he had been attacked by a wild animal than killed in battle.
Vali couldn’t bear the corpses staring at him in that unnatural light any longer. He spent a few moments steeling himself and then began to tip them overboard into the sea, removing any swords and purses before he did so. The work was long and it was hard. Vali felt exhausted and had to take frequent breaks as his distaste for what he was doing became too much. Feileg’s wound pained him and he was little help. The fog began to clear and birds to descend — mainly gulls but crows too. The sight of the crows gave Vali hope. They weren’t far from land. Still, he made some effort to shoo them away. Had the birds mutilated the corpses before flying off as the boat slid into the fog?
Feileg helped him lift a stout Dane up to the shield rail. The man was much heavier than he looked and it was a terrible heave to get him there. They propped him for a moment to recover their breath, the corpse leaning over the side like someone seasick rather than dead. And then Vali realised what had happened.
‘You did this to them, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You did this evil thing.’
The wolfman looked at him without expression. ‘Prince,’ he said, ‘you must not talk to me like that, for you ate a wolf’s treat.’
‘Have you taken to talking in riddles, Feileg? Our human company has had a corrupting effect on you. Say what you mean plainly.’
The wolfman said nothing.
The Dane had clearly been decomposing for some time. As they lifted his legs over the side, his stomach split, enveloping Vali in a cloud of corpse gas. He retched. The man slid into the water and Vali shuddered, wiping away the vomit. There was a strange metallic taste in his mouth, not unpleasant at all, he thought. He looked at his hand and then down to his boots where he had been sick. More blood. Instinctively he felt his sides, his arms and legs. He hadn’t been wounded but still he was retching blood. The wolfman continued to watch him without expression.
When the last body was gone, Vali sat down, opened a sea chest and took out a skin of wine, drinking deeply. It tasted odd, unpleasant even. He concluded it was off. Why would a man take bad wine on a trip? He tried another. That was off too, as was a skin of beer. It tasted repulsive, undrinkable.
Finally, he found a skin with water in it and drank from that. It tasted much better, though he was now aware of other scents, suggestions of things he couldn’t name but that made him think of the death throes of the animal which had been used to make the skin. He perceived something else as he drank — more than a taste, a sense of who had used the skin before. It had been drunk from just before the battle commenced — there was the sweat of anxiety on it.
And then he realised that beneath the salt of the sea, the smell of the wet boards and the ropes, he could smell a thousand other notes. Grass, loam, reindeer, trees, drying sand and seaweed, even a smell so familiar and powerful it almost made him laugh. Wet dog. In his mind Vali saw Disa driving Hopp away from the fire, saying they’d be having roast dog for dinner if he sat any closer. He breathed in and knew they were near land.
Vali looked out but could see nothing. He could tell by the scent of pine needles that the nearest land lay to his east, away from where the sun was throwing its fog shadows. The ship was caught in a current and was far too big for him to sail, but he took the rudder and tried to steer it that way.
The wolfman just kept looking at him.
Vali’s thoughts had been disordered by the corpses and his long unconsciousness. As they began to come back to normality, he realised he had forgotten to ask a very important question. ‘Do you know what happened to Bragi?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said the wolfman.
‘What?’
