The Wolf Sea

All the more reason for haste,' Finn said vehemently. If it were any of us. . By the gods, think of it.

Dragged along by dead-eaters, already having lost your balls? You would give up all hope, even of the Oathsworn.'

At least, if they have lost their balls,' Kvasir pointed out moodily, 'it is one less thing for the dead-eaters to cook.'

There were grunts and growls of derision at this, while Kvasir spread his hands and demanded to know what was so bad about what he had just said.

I said nothing, for the fear and uncertainty was rich in the voices I had heard. I caught Botolf's eye and the look that passed between us let me know he was thinking the same.

It isn't a disease,' said a voice into the sullen silence of this, in between the moody mumbling of the thunder. Sighvat.

`What say you? Woken up, have you? About time,' growled Finn.

Sighvat ignored him, shuffling closer as the wind screamed and Redbeard's unseen goat-chariot banged about the sky on iron-rimmed wheels. 'Eating the dead isn't a disease, nor are they fetch-haunted. It is hunger only, so bad that meat is meat no matter what it looks like.'

`Men are never the same after they have done it,' Brother John persisted. 'At best, they cannot be trusted.'

`None of us can be trusted then,' answered Sighvat sonorously, 'for we are all as likely to turn to it, given the same circumstance.'

`You would be last on my list of fare,' I offered, trying to make lighter of all this. A few chuckled, but Sighvat, curse him, was not for bringing cheer into that Thor-raging night.

I may be first available,' he said, flatly. 'For my doom is on me.'

`What's this?' demanded Botolf, alarmed. Doom was not a word anyone cared for and, for all his muscles, the giant was mortally afraid of the Norns and their weaving.

`That Godwin, the Saxon,' said Sighvat. 'He spoke to me first. My wyrd, as my mother has told me.'

The sky banged like a great flapping door and the blue-white seared my eyes. I felt the sick in my belly like a ballast stone, smooth and round and sinking, saw him look at the greyed sky on Cyprus and tell me how his mother had it from a volva in the next valley that her son would find his doom when the kite spoke to him.

Godwin's name, Puttoc, did not mean 'buzzard' — my Englisc was limited. It meant 'kite'.

Sighvat told them of it and everyone was silent. Those nearest to him touched a shoulder, or clasped his forearm in sympathy and none doubted the fact of his doom — save Brother John, of course, who was driven to a near frenzy of tongue-lashing over it.

He called us useless pagans, nithings, never to enjoy the fruits of the Christ heaven until we had stopped being stupid, hag-ridden barbarians and how a good dipping in holy water would be a waste of his and God's time.

I thought, at one point, that I would hear the meaty smack of someone hitting him, but none did. Instead, they hunched against his ravings as they did against the storm and, like it, he ran out of breath before long.

Then, burned away to the enduring husk, we staggered out of the desert. Which is easy to say and hard to do and, though it took us only a few days, it was through a world of sand, piled up in great waves like an ocean frozen in time. Rippled and ridged, it flowed round us like water, crawled as if alive into every crease and crevice.

Even here, in this absolute waste, I watched Aliabu dig in a certain place, insert a long reed and, like some seidr magic, there was water you could sip. Warm and filthy, but mead in that place.

It was our only comfort. Even Botolf's strength was fading by the time that great sand sea lapped on to firm rocks, but by then he was carrying the Goat Boy on his shoulders and the rasp of that little one's breathing, from the dust that lashed his barely healed lung, cut like an adze.

`He weighs about the same as the ring-coat I don't have,' Botolf muttered, which would have made us chuckle but for the fact our faces were fixed in masks of crusted sweat and dust.

Bergthor, who had been Kol Fish-hook's oarmate, had taken a cut in the fight at Aindara, a little slash on the forearm that had gone bad, spreading red lines and foul smells, despite Brother John wrapping it in a cloth marked with his most potent prayers.

Watery red pus oozed out of the wound, dripping on his breeks. It dried in the heat, but still managed to infect the air with a sickly sweet smell. Now Bergthor had turned green and staggered like a drunk when he walked and, as he saw the climb ahead, he sank to his knees and cried, though no sound came, only tears.

A strong man, who had survived everything the gods could throw at him, was crying because of a cut arm. Even as we marvelled that anyone had moisture left to waste, we looked away, because we were also strong men and knew we would weep when our time came. When we foundered, our eyes and minds struggling even as we lost control over our bodies, we would weep like this.

I should have used The Godi on him there and then, but wanted him to savour his last moments. Four of us carried him up to higher ground of rock and yellow-brown scrub, a sweating affair of groaning men and camels until, at the top, a breeze like balm took us and we saw the sparkle of water and the eye-aching sight of green.

`The Jordan,' Aliabu declared. 'My task is finished. I will lead you to where you can cross, then you will follow the road south to Jerusalem.'

`The Jordan,' Brother John said, blood seeping from lips too cracked to take his smile.

Is it safe?' panted Short Eldgrim.

Aliabu shrugged. 'Jerusalem is held by a Turk, called Muhammad ibn Tugh,' he answered. 'He has taken the title of Ikshid but his rule is a fragile thing, though he holds to the view that the city is holy to all People of the Book. There are more Christ-men in Jerusalem than either Jews or men of the True Faith.

`There are mosques and Jewish temples and Christ churches there, but the Jews fare better than Christians, for Christ temples are sometimes molested, especially when the Great City makes war. A law prevents either new ones being built or old ones repaired; but the city is holy to all, so none are molested, according to the law.'

`Mirabile visu,' said Brother John and got down on his knees and started to pray. He would have wept had there been any moisture left in him — and, to be truthful, so would we all, for it was wonderful to behold, as the little priest said. I have never seen a green so green as that day.

Then Bergthor vomited and the juice of it ran sluggish at our feet, mixing with the dust on our boots and forming small clumps of sand. Lines of blood streaked it and the desert sucked it up. Pus, thick and yellow as cream, dripped from the black ruin of his arm.

Of course, we should have killed him, for it was clear he wasn't going to make it, but I could not bring myself to it, not after what we had all done. I wanted him to live a little longer in the sight of the green and feel the breeze on his cheeks. When I said this, the others nodded and hunkered down, understanding it at once.

The Goat Boy made him a shelter and we sat and listened to him vomit into the dry desert sand. We gave him our water to drink, but he threw that up, too, and the desert lapped it up.

Towards the end, Finn shoved the handle of his seax into Bergthor's good hand, but he was too far gone to hold it, so I sat with it, holding his hand in mine, both wrapped round the hilt. It felt like a bird's wing.

Others stirred themselves wearily, began collecting stones and scuffing out a hole.

`This is how we will all end up,' muttered Hookeye and a few others growled their agreement. I said nothing, but saw where the lines were being drawn, saw that the weld between the old Oathsworn and the Danes from Cyprus was fracturing now

Bergthor started coughing, as if the sand was in his dry lungs, as if it had come to claim him. I saw it then, while my mind swam as if I were underwater, the desert snaking round him, consuming and absorbing him.

It wrapped itself around him, sticking to the water droplets on his face, painting him grey, minute by minute, clinging to his beard. He gasped for air, yet breathed only grit, seemed to decay in that spot, collapsing into nothing more substantial than sand.

Wearily, we howed him up under rocks when he died in the dark, then moved off, leaving him to the desert, that feeding animal which grows ever larger and will eat all who dwell in it, one day or the day after.

We came down into Jorsalir like sleepwalkers, drunk on the bustle and the green of it all, forcing the four