cover

Contents

Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Maps
Book One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Book Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Book Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Book Four
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Scott Oden
Copyright

ALSO BY SCOTT ODEN

Men of Bronze

Memnon

The Lion of Cairo

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TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.penguin.co.uk

Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

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First published in the United States of America in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books
an imprint of St. Martin’s Press

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Scott Oden 2017
Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Scott Oden has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409031697
ISBNs 9780593061275 (hb)
9780593061282 (tpb)

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

For Steve Tompkins
and Miguel Martins,
shield-brothers.
 

All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre;
The feast is over and the lamps expire.

ROBERT E. HOWARD

He knew himself a villain—but he deem’d
The rest no better than the thing he seem’d;
And scorn’d the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.
He knew himself detested, but he knew
The hearts that loath’d him, crouch’d and dreaded too.
Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt
From all affection and from all contempt.

LORD BYRON, THE CORSAIR

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1

The storm howled out of the west like the terrible voice of God, shouting down the heretics who doubted the coming Apocalypse. The autumn had been warmer than it should, and Njáll son of Hjálmarr—who in the last year had forsworn the whale-road so he might carry the banner of the White Christ—knew he should not have trusted it would hold. The priest back in Jelling, that scrofulous bastard who preached conversion with the sword rather than the psalter, had warned him that this oväder—this un-weather—was of the Devil’s making; that the fumes of Hell warmed the world of Man, and soon the armies of God would strike from the Gates of Heaven to set the balance right.

A year ago, before his conversion, Njáll would have dismissed the priest for a fool. He would have seen the heathen hand of Thor in the deafening crash of thunder and the jags of lightning crackling across the night-black sky; heard the false laughter of Rán in the pelting hail and the sheets of rain soaking him to the bone. And he would have sacrificed and called out to Odin for succor. But, like the blessed apostle Paulos, the scales had fallen from Njáll’s eyes and he could see the truth laid out before him: the power of the old gods was breaking, and the world’s end was nigh—and not the treacherous lie that was Ragnarok, with its false promises of glory and slaughter without end, but the Day of Judgment when the White Christ would return and scour the earth clean of heathens and apostates and deniers of the Lord.

And Njáll Hjálmarr’s son counted himself blessed to have received the gift of salvation so close to the end …

Thunder shook the heavens. Njáll kept a tight grip on the halter of their donkey. The beast shied and threatened to bolt with every step, its eyes rolling in fear. Only the strength in his great shoulders, a legacy of the days he had gone raiding with Norway’s king, Olaf Tryggve’s son, kept the animal from plunging off the path and into the undergrowth, where wind-stripped leaves faded from orange and red to a muddy brown in silent testimony to the coming winter. The path, hardly better than a cow trail, led inland from the beach at Seal Reef. Roskilde was their destination; once there, his companion, Aidan, would take service with old Father Gunnar and Njáll would … would what? Simply await the End of Days?

Water sluiced from Njáll’s salt-and-pepper beard as he hauled on the rope lead; he tried to drag the blasted donkey but the effort only gouged furrows in the mud. His feet slipped on wet rock; he nearly fell. Njáll railed at the animal, his voice lost to the roaring wind. “Damn you, you miserable beast! I swear if we reach Roskilde I’m going to skin you and make a pair of boots from your flea-bitten hide!”

For a moment, Njáll considered backtracking to the beach, to ride out the storm in the moss-grown ruins of the old stone tower there—a relic of the days when the kings of the Shield-Danes ruled over Sjælland. But Seal Reef was a good two hours or more behind, while Roskilde was a day, perhaps two, ahead. No, they needed shelter here, now.

There was a lull in the rain; the echo of thunder rolled from horizon to horizon. Njáll glanced about, seeking Aidan. The irrepressible young Briton, who for the last year had helped guide the Dane through the darkness and into the light of the Christ, was ahead of him, clambering up the rock and scrub of the hillside. Njáll frowned. “Aidan!”

Aidan turned. The gale snatched off his cowl, revealing a shock of hair the color of dark copper and not even a hint of a beard. He bent into the fierce wind; his black woolen mantle flapped like vestigial wings as he pointed to something a short way up the slope.

There, partially hidden by hawthorn and bramble, was the yawning mouth of a cave.

Njáll waved him back. Though secure in his newfound faith, the Dane had not lost the superstitions of his heathen kin. He had learned from a young age that a cave like that might shelter any number of fell creatures, beyond bears or wolves. Witches could meet there in conclave, to weave the songs that wrought the doom of good men; trolls, wights, and goblins might lurk in the shadows, ready to seize unwary travelers. The spreading Word of God might keep the evils of a forgotten world at bay, but it could not destroy them completely …

Njáll shouted at the younger man, cold dread seeping into his bones. “It’s not safe!”

“Safer than walking in this wrack!” Aidan replied, his voice high and sharp, like that of a castrato. Before Njáll could respond, Aidan scrambled up the slope, slipped behind the hawthorn thicket, and vanished into the mouth of the cave.

Njáll reeled off a long—and very un-Christian—litany of curses. He did not dare leave the donkey to its own devices. One sharp crack of thunder and they would not see their belongings again until they reached Roskilde, if then. Njáll’s curses redoubled as he manhandled the beast up the slope; despite the chill and the rain soaking him to the bone, sweat dripped from his brow by the time he reached the stand of hawthorn. The God-cursed animal balked at entering the cave, so Njáll compromised: he tied the donkey’s lead rope as tightly as he could to the thickest branch he could find. Pausing to dig a bearded axe with a short oak haft from his gear—the skeggox he had carried on the whale-road—Njáll charged in through branch and bramble, half-expecting to see nothing left of Aidan but bloody shreds.

But Njáll’s war cry died on his lips, his charge to death and glory arrested by a distinct lack of foes. Indeed, the slender young man stood whole and unscathed inside the mouth of the cave. He looked over his shoulder at Njáll, blue eyes daring the wet and bedraggled Dane to reprimand him. Though Aidan’s cheeks were ruddy and windburned, his features were as fine and delicate as any woman’s. Njáll might have marked him for a lesser son of nobility had he not known better.

“God loves a fool,” Njáll muttered, breathing hard. “That’s the only reason I can fathom why you’re not dead yet.”

Aidan grinned. “God also helps those who help themselves, which is why we now have shelter from the storm.”

Caves were a rarity on Sjælland, and this one, Njáll could see, was rarer still. It was gigantic. It could easily have held the burial mound of Gorm the Old, back in Jelling. The cave entrance hung like a ledge in the wall of a mine shaft; gray light and rain trickled down from a scrub-choked fissure twenty feet over their heads, the water dropping down to pool in a corner of the cave floor, some thirty feet below them. A trio of stunted hawthorn trees grew at the edge of the pool, branches still festooned with autumn leaves; a fourth, nothing but a dead husk, stood like a naked caricature of its brothers. How far back the cave stretched Njáll could not apprehend, for its farthest reaches lay cloaked in darkness. He wondered if this might be the lair of the dragon that slew and was slain by old Bödvar, the Geat who made himself king of the Shield-Danes? Though given over to the Christ, Njáll felt his once-heathen blood stir at the thought of testing the edge of his axe against the scales of a great wyrm. That would be a good death!

Aidan shuffled close to the edge and peered down at the pool. “Why doesn’t it flood?”

“Drains out through chinks in the rock, I’d wager.” Njáll sniffed the air. It was damp and musty, with a faint metallic-animal reek that reminded him of a badly tanned leather jerkin worn beneath a chain hauberk.

To the right of the entrance, a series of rock shelves like stair steps carved by dwarves led down to the cave floor. Njáll tested them. They were slick with moisture but solid. The Dane descended first, axe held loosely in his fist. His free hand brushed the cave walls. Under his fingers, he could feel scratches and grooves.

“Runes,” he said, his voice echoing.

Aidan looked closer. “Here’s a word in Latin, I think.”

“What does it say?”

The youth tilted his head this way and that, rising on his toes as he tried to get a better view of the faint inscription. “‘Or-Orcadii,’ perhaps? Maybe ‘Orcades’?”

“Orkney?”

Aidan shrugged. “Hard to tell. Could be …”

Jags of hard white light flashed from overhead; in answer, thunder seemed to shake the very ground. By the time they reached the last step, a fresh deluge was pouring from the fissure. Chains of lightning made bright the gloom of the cave; by their brilliant flares Njáll saw another sigil chiseled deep into the wall: an eye, its slitted pupil like that of some monstrous serpent. The giant Dane shuddered.

“What bandit’s lair is this?”

“Does it matter?” Aidan replied. “God has granted us a dry place of respite from the storm. Would you turn up your nose at a gift from the Almighty?”

Njáll glared up at the eye; the crude savagery of its carving left him uneasy, like a memory of something—some whispered warning—from his childhood. He glanced around, half-expecting a fork-tailed devil to leap from the shadows. “Satan’s own front porch is no gift.”

Aidan chuckled, shaking his head. “Come, turn your axe on that dead tree so we can get a fire going. I’ll see to our poor donkey. I think you will better appreciate the Lord’s generosity with dry clothes, warm feet, and a hot meal in your belly.”

Njáll grumbled, but in short order the two had built a small campsite against the cave wall, near the rising steps. No amount of coaxing, however, would convince the donkey to move deeper than the relatively dry cave mouth. Taking pity on the trembling beast, Aidan unloaded their possessions—two woven reed panniers, their contents wrapped in seal skin—and left the donkey hobbled and tied by the cave entrance, along with a measure of oats and a bucket of water drawn up from the pool below.

The fire crackled to life, lending warmth and a little light to their corner of the cave. While Njáll busied himself with setting a hank of salted pork to roast over the flames, Aidan took his spare clothing and moved off to the far side of the cave—out of sight—to change. When he returned, he laid his wet garments out to dry. Njáll followed suit, a ritualized sort of modesty that seemed natural between the two of them. While Njáll was gone Aidan fished some bread and cheese and a handful of dried apples from their gear, along with a flask of watered mead, and prepared them each a plate of food. The smell of roasting pork, and the sizzle and pop of fat, made Aidan’s mouth water. Stirring the fire, he felt a faint breeze coming from deeper in the cave, like the exhalation of some great beast. He was staring at the darkness behind them when Njáll came back. “How deep under the earth do you think this cave goes?” he asked the Dane, who knelt and spread his own wet clothes out alongside Aidan’s.

Njáll glanced at the rear of the cave and shrugged. “Only God knows.”

“We should investigate it.”

“Not until I have the warm feet and bellyful of food you spoke of.”

Njáll sat on the lowest step; Aidan handed him a plate, and both men bowed their heads as Aidan recited the Lord’s Prayer, his mixed accents, English and Danish, mangling its Latin phrases. At the end, both of them muttered, “Amen.” And with a nod, they fell upon their food.

“Who made that, you think?” Aidan asked, jerking his narrow chin at the eye sigil. “And what does it mean?”

“An ogre, like as not,” Njáll said around a mouthful of pork. “My grandfather told me caves like this were hacked out of the earth by the sons of Ymir, foul beasts who drink the blood of good Christians.” Njáll paused. He swallowed and then fixed Aidan with an iron-hard stare. “Are you a good Christian? They will ask you this, once we reach Roskilde. They will ask how you came to be here. They will ask you about your home, your people, and why you left a place as sacred as Glastonbury to join a wretched little church that’s two hairs shy of the asshole of the world. And they will ask if you cleave to our Lord’s commandments. How will you answer?”

Aidan didn’t flinch; this was an old game between them, preparation for taking up a life of holy service when truth and circumstance did not match one another precisely. “I will answer with alacrity,” Aidan replied, “and silently implore God to forgive the lies that must escape my lips. I will tell them the tale of Red Njáll Hjálmarr’s son, who captured me in the sack of Exeter and forced me into a life of vile servitude. I will tell them how the power of the Redeemer turned Njáll from his heathen ways and how I, because of my upbringing at Glastonbury, helped set that once-vicious reaver’s heart upon the path of the One True God. And I will tell them that, with the End Times upon us, I came east with you so we might help spread the Gospel among your godless kin.”

Njáll nodded. “But, what if they discover your true nature? What if you fall in love with one of your brother monks and he rejects your advances? What then?”

“I … I don’t know,” Aidan said with an exasperated sigh, weary all of a sudden. He rose and took Njáll’s empty plate. “I don’t care for such things, not at Glastonbury, certainly not at Exeter, and not now. I only know this: I won’t live as I did before, and I want to serve the Lord in what time remains to us. Nothing else matters.”

Njáll nodded. “Pray that will be enough.”

Aidan carried their dishes to the pool and rinsed them in the stream of rainwater falling from above. He heard rumbles of muted thunder as distant lightning yet cast its white glare over the hillsides. Aidan peered up through the fissure; outside, night had fallen and a chill had settled on the land. By dawn, it would be frigid. Aidan turned and shuffled back toward their fire.

The youth looked longingly at the hinterlands of the cave, its shadow-cloaked mystery crying out for resolution. Maybe a little exploration before bed. A flare of lightning cast its glare …

And as Aidan watched, the light illuminated a figure—etched it against the darkness with startling clarity. Something shaped like a man, savage and barbaric. Something that moved.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Aidan dropped the plates; he trod on the hem of his robe, tripping and scrabbling over the rock in his haste to get back to the fire. “Christ Almighty!”

Aidan’s cry startled Njáll, who had settled against the now-warm wall with his eyes closed. He lurched to his feet and hefted his axe. “What ails you?”

The youth gestured toward the darkness at the rear of the cave. His voice, when he found it, was a terrified hiss. “We … We are not alone! There’s someone back there! I swear it! A man, surely …”

Njáll’s eyes narrowed. “Stay behind me.” He reached down, drew a brand from the fire, and held it aloft. Wood crackled and sparked; embers drifted on the faint breath of air.

Njáll, too, saw something move. His makeshift torch revealed a glint of iron, the swirl of a wolf pelt, and then … nothing. He tensed, ready for the rush of a foeman. His axe felt once more like an extension of his arm. “If I say run, you run. Do you hear?” he muttered to Aidan, who nodded. Njáll drew himself up to his full height and bellowed into the darkness: “Who goes? If you be a thief, we are but poor sons of Christ! We have nothing! Show yourself!”

The echo of Njáll’s challenge died away. He strained to hear some sound, a clink of metal on stone, a hissed breath, something. But there was nothing, save for the dull rumble of thunder and the splash of rain. He was on the verge of calling out again when a voice answered from the gloom—a voice as hard as knapped flint that spoke the tongue of the Danes with an accent Njáll could not place. “You have food, poor sons of Christ.”

“Aye. Little enough for our own needs, but what we have we will share with you.”

“At what price?”

“We ask nothing in return. Our charity is the charity of Christ,” Njáll said. “My brother, here, will fetch you a plate. Aidan?”

Njáll heard a snuffling sound, followed by harsh laughter. “Brother, is it?” There came a derisive noise, just then—halfway between a growl and a cough. “Faugh! I’ll play your little game, poor son of Christ. I have crossed paths with many a Dane in my day. Spear-Danes and Shield-Danes, Bright-Danes and Ring-Danes, West-Danes and South-Danes … but never a Christ-Dane.” The voice filled that epithet with a sense of scorn. “Do you Christ-Danes still follow the ancient laws of hospitality?”

“We do,” Njáll replied.

“And did I sneak past you like a thief in the night, Christ-Dane?”

Njáll ground his teeth. “No.”

“I don’t understand,” Aidan said. The youth shot Njáll a confused glance.

“Then understand this, little fool.” The voice grated like iron on a whetstone. “This cave is mine! I have marked it with the Eye! You trespass, disturb my rest, drink my water, and cut down my trees, and you have the spleen to call me your guest?”

“We … We meant no offense,” Aidan said. “We did not know this cave belonged to you.”

Still cloaked in shadow, the figure laughed once more. There was no humor in his voice. “Aye, claim ignorance and blindness, for is that not your way? Keep your Nailed God’s charity. I will trade you my hospitality for your food. Do we have a bargain?”

Njáll considered the offer. In the past, he would have simply trusted his axe to win the day and taken what he needed as spoils of battle. But those days were over. He was a man of peace, now. Perhaps this was a divine test of his patience, of the strength of his new faith? Surely he could pass a night with a surly heathen in exchange for warmth, shelter, and the blessings of the Lord. Slowly, he let his axe fall to his side and nodded. “We have. I am Njáll son of Hjálmarr. My companion, here, is Aidan of Glastonbury. We are bound for the church at Roskilde. How are you called?”

The figure moved nearer to the circle of light cast by the travelers’ fire. The thunder had faded; the rain was a soft hiss. Weak flares of lightning revealed little more than a twisted silhouette, gnarled limbs bulging with muscle and sinew. “I am called many things, Christ-Dane. Corpse-maker and Life-quencher, the Bringer of Night, the Son of the Wolf and Brother of the Serpent. I am the last of Bálegyr’s brood, called Grimnir by my people.”

Aidan backed over to the panniers and drew out some bread and cheese. A bit of pork remained, as well as an apple, wrinkled and sweet. He glanced up as he worked, curious as to what kind of man this Grimnir was. “Who … who are your people?”

But what stepped from the shadows was not human. The flickering firelight threw Grimnir’s features into sharp relief. While his face had the same construction as a human face, its planes and angles were long and sharp, vulpine in the half-light of the cave. Coarse black hair, woven with gold beads and discs of carved bone, framed eyes like splinters of red-hot iron, set deep into a craggy brow. He was broad of chest and long of arm, slouch-backed in his posture, with tattoos in cinder and woad snaking across his swarthy hide. Grimnir was clad in antiquated splendor: a sleeveless hauberk of iron rings sewn onto black leather, a kilt of poorly tanned horsehide cut from the flanks of a dappled roan, a cloak of wolf skins, and arm rings of gold, silver, and wrought iron. One black-nailed hand rested on the worn ivory hilt of a long seax.

Aidan was taken aback, but Njáll reacted as though he had been struck. He brought up his axe. No longer was he a man of peace in the service of God; rather, he was a Dane facing an ancestral enemy. “Christ’s mercies! Skrælingr, I name you! Back, child of Satan!”

“You would forget our truce, Christ-Dane?” Grimnir’s voice was full of cold menace; he shifted his weight, balancing on the balls of his feet like a predator ready to spring.

“There can be no truces with an enemy of God!”

“Bugger your god!”

But before Njáll and Grimnir could come to blows, Aidan thrust himself between the two, with no thought for his own safety. “Stop! Both of you! Is it not written that we should love the sinner though we despise the sin?”

Njáll hesitated. “This is no mere sinner, Aidan! It is not even a man! It comes from a race of traitors and oathbreakers and defilers of corpses!”

“And so? Were not your people once described in no less despicable terms? How runs the prayer, brother? It was once on the lips of every God-fearing man from Britain to Byzantium. Do you recall it?”

The stinging condemnation in Aidan’s voice dampened Njáll’s anger. “Aye. ‘Deliver us, O God, from the savage race of Northmen.’” Njáll lowered his axe, teeth grinding with the effort; though he might struggle with it every day until the End of Days, he was a man of God, now, and not some blood-mad heathen. Not any longer. When he spoke again his voice was constrained. “Thank you for reminding me. You are wise beyond your years, and a Christian without equal, brother. Forgive me, Grimnir. We are ill guests to abuse your hospitality so. Will you not join us?”

Grimnir’s narrowed eyes slid from man to youth and back again. He was plainly suspicious of them, but with an agonizing slowness he nevertheless took his hand from the hilt of his seax. “Tonight we eat, and you will sleep in peace. But, come the dawn, I might just split your miserable skull, Christ-Dane.”

Njáll picked up the plate of food and held it out to Grimnir. “Fair enough,” he replied. “If that is God’s will, so be it.”

With a fierce grin, Grimnir accepted the food and joined the two travelers by the fire.

2

The world beyond the cave had grown silent with the fullness of night. A wind moaned inland from the sea, driving a shoal of fallen leaves before it and rattling the branches of the hawthorn trees. The clouds overhead shredded to reveal the gleaming lamps of Heaven, closer and brighter now that the Ending of the World drew nigh.

Inside the cave Njáll and Aidan knelt on the cold stone floor before a small cross carved from the old spruce oar of a dragon ship. The youth led them in prayer, reciting the words by rote even as his mind dwelled on the creature whose cave they shared. Grimnir had squatted on his haunches, his hair a stringy veil from which rust-red eyes gleamed suspiciously; he sniffed at each bite as though he expected it to be poisoned. Aidan had a thousand questions for the—what had Njáll called him? skrælingr?—but all that had been forestalled when the older man declared he needed to pray before taking his rest. Grimnir had snarled and spat when Aidan brought out the cross, as though the sight of it pained him; he loudly and profanely cursed their faith as mummery and wanted no part of it. Aidan could hear him even now, relieving himself beyond the hawthorns screening the mouth of the cave and, if Aidan’s ear could be trusted, singing. Grimnir’s flinty voice filtered down, tuneless and unlovely:

Brothers shall strive and slaughter,

Sisters shall sin together;

Ill days among men:

An axe-age, a sword-age,

Shields shall be cloven;

A wind-age, a wolf-age,

Ere the world totters.

He heard Njáll mutter “Amen” and quickly added his own. The Dane stood; while Aidan carefully wrapped their carved cross and stowed it in their gear, Njáll went over and stoked the fire. He rubbed his eyes.

“That song he sings,” Aidan said, crouching by the panniers. “Do you know it?”

“Aye, it is a song the heathens sing of Ragnarok,” Njáll replied, frowning. “What my people call the end of the world.” The older man resumed his place against the cave wall, his axe beside him. Aidan passed him a blanket then set about preparing a place where he would sleep. Smoke coiled and drifted out of the fissure as Grimnir’s song faded.

The End of Days weighed heavily on Aidan’s mind. Somewhere in the world beyond, on this very night, the Antichrist stalked the earth, sowing the seeds of its destruction and drawing all things of evil nature and intent to him. In his mind, Aidan knew this to be true, for was it not written in Revelation? And did not the blessed Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham determine this year to be the Great Year, the year of the Last Judgment? Why, then, did Aidan not feel in his heart the jubilation that surely must come from the nearness of the Lord? The Christ would return by year’s end, but Aidan could not sense anything special about each day that passed. The wars had not increased in number, nor had tribulations grown more than what was each man’s lot to bear. Lands where crops had failed suffered famine while their neighbors might fill their larders and barns nigh to bursting with the bounty of the Lord. Aidan saw neither rhyme nor reason to this. He could accept the idea that perhaps the learned abbot of Eynsham was wrong in naming this as the Great Year, but surely not the Revelation to John. It was infallible, was it not?

Aidan stirred from his reverie. “I did not know heathens believed in the End Times, too.”

“Aye, they do,” Njáll replied. “Though it is not like ours. They believe Ragnarok will be a time of glory and endless war, when the gods issue forth from Ásgarðr to battle the jötunn, their sworn foes. Their struggle will break the world. It is an ancient tale.”

“You know,” Aidan said after a moment, “this Grimnir reminds me of your old shipmates. He has that same godless exuberance.”

“We Danes can at least find redemption. His folk are beyond even that.”

Aidan’s brow furrowed. “Surely there is no man who is beyond redemption?”

“I told you, that thing is no man.”

“I thought so, too, when I first saw him. He looks like”—the youth struggled to find the words—“like no man I’ve ever seen, but he does have two arms, two legs, and a head as we do. He breathes as we do, eats as we do, drinks, spits, laughs and curses as we do. If we judge him on his appearance, alone, then I would concede your point. But how is he not a man? And this name you have for him, skrælingr? I’ve never heard it.”

“I expect not. It is as old as Ragnarok. But, there is a word in your tongue, ‘orcnéas.’ Have you heard that one? It describes a monster of great evil, an ogre who stalks fen and marsh, and eats the flesh of the dead. They are one and the same.”

Aidan looked at the older man as though he had gone daft. “Aye, I know that name. Orcnéas were enemies of God, children of Cain who fought long against the Almighty. Grimnir can’t be one of those! God banished them from His sight. Honestly, Njáll! What game is this? You name him something he cannot be!”

“It is no game,” Njáll replied. “You say these orcnéas strove against God and were banished? So it was with the skrælingar. My grandfather told me many times about these wolves of the North, these children of Loki, who rebelled against Odin and were cast down here, to Miðgarðr, to plague the sons of Men.”

“Banished from the sight of God?”

Njáll nodded.

“So, we will tell the monks at Roskilde that, as we journeyed, we passed a night in a cave with a creature of legend? A monster?”

The older Dane smiled, though even Aidan could see it was forced—the smile of an adult indulging a child’s whim. “You will find if you live as long as I have that even the most outlandish tales have a tiny grain of truth at their heart, and from that grain the minds of men can make fabulous pearls. When we first looked upon this cave, a part of me wondered if it might be the lair of the dragon slain by old King Bödvar of the Shield-Danes. No doubt the monks at Roskilde would laugh at me for this, since they surely believe dragons to be the bailiwick of children, skalds, and fools. But I am no addle-headed poet. I’ve seen the skull of a great wyrm—at Borghund; it was harder than stone and brimming with knifelike teeth—so they must have existed. Likewise, I’ve never laid eyes upon one of the skrælingar till now, but I have seen their bones and heard the tales of my kin, so I know this one for what he is.

“Grimnir’s folk were the bane of my people for a dozen generations and more. They raided our villages, striking at night while we slept, killing our men and our children and making off with our women and our possessions. An old chieftain named Hróarr made the Danes fight as one people, and they finally broke the skrælingar, though it cost Hróarr his life. In truth, it’s been many long years since anyone has seen one. My grandfather thought them gone from this land.”

Grimnir’s voice caught them both off guard. So quiet was he that neither man had heard his approach. “Hróarr? That old swine got what was coming to him.” He rose from a crouch, where he’d been listening to their conversation, and descended to the cave floor. He made a hissing noise and fixed Njáll with a belligerent stare. “And you … you yammer on about things beyond your reckoning, Christ-Dane. The kaunar were not born of the Sly One. Ymir is our sire and the black blood of Angrboða runs hot in our veins.”

Njáll ignored him; Aidan glanced between the two, his brow furrowed. “Forgive me,” he said after a moment, “what is kaunar?”

“To you, I am orcnéas. To the Dane, I am skrælingr. The blasted Irish would name me fomórach,” Grimnir said, then smote his breast with one black-nailed fist. “But I am kaunr! Do you understand now?”

Aidan flinched at the vehemence in Grimnir’s voice. He nodded. “And … And are there many of y-your people left?”

Nár, I am the last.” Grimnir snatched up his cloak, wrapping the old wolf skin around his shoulders, and then sat just outside the ring of firelight with his back to the pool. His eyes gleamed like red coals. “I made the death song for old Gífr, who was my mother’s brother, back in that bastard Charles Magnus’s day. Not seen another of my kind since. When I am gone …” Grimnir trailed off.

“But …” Aidan cleared his throat. “But Charles Magnus ruled the Franks nigh upon two hundred years ago. Forgive me again, but just how old do you claim to be?”

Grimnir shrugged. “How do you reckon your age?”

Aidan ducked his head, his cheeks coloring. “I … I do not rightly know,” he replied. “The monks at Glastonbury say I was left upon their doorstep one snowy Yule. I have seen my twentieth year, to be sure. Perhaps more.”

“A foundling, eh?” Grimnir shifted his baleful gaze to Njáll. “And you, Christ-Dane?”

“I am hard upon my fiftieth year.”

“Striplings, the lot of you.” Grimnir’s nostrils flared. “I first drew breath at Orkahaugr, in the Kjolen Mountains, in the last days of the Peace of Frodi.” His lips skinned back, revealing a fierce, serrated grin. “My birth was a harbinger of strife and shield-breaking!”

“Impossible!” Aidan barked. “Our host is playing us for fools, brother. Frodi’s Peace lasted as long as our Lord Christ’s stay on this earth. That would make our friend, here, at least a thousand years old!” Aidan expected protestations from the giant Dane, scoffing laughter, something. Njáll, however, remained silent. Aidan saw not even a shadow of doubt darken his bearded visage. “You believe him?”

Grimnir leaned forward, his eyes glittering with a dangerous light. “You call me a liar?”

“A liar?” Aidan said quickly, holding up his hands to forestall Grimnir’s anger. “No. I did not mean it like that. It’s just … while I will concede you are not like us, a man descended from the loins of blessed Adam, to believe you are over a thousand years old is something else, entirely. Only Christ is immortal.”

Man, eh?” Grimnir chuckled. Like a spring uncoiling, he settled back. “Believe what you will, little foundling. It matters nothing to me. Have you any more of that cat piss you call mead?”

Aidan handed him the near-empty flask; he watched as Grimnir drained it. Njáll leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed, one fist tight around the haft of his axe—though by the laws of hospitality he should be as safe this night as if he slept under the roof of his kin. Aidan lowered his voice. “We are bound for Roskilde, to spend what time we have left preparing for the End of Days. And to spread the message of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to those poor souls among the Danes who yet kneel before pagan gods. Is this your home?” Aidan indicated the cave with a jerk of his head.

Grimnir stared into the fire, as though reading an omen in its crackling heart. “For the winter, aye. I came south from Skaane, seeking an old enemy, a worm who owes me weregild.”

Though on the verge of sleep, this nevertheless caught Njáll’s ear. He raised an eyelid. “Revenge is mine, the Lord says, and I will repay them in due time.

Grimnir’s wolfish face twisted into a mask of malevolence, lips peeling back in a snarl of contempt. “Your paltry little god best keep his hands off what’s mine. Especially this one. Wretched maggot who calls himself Bjarki. Bjarki Half-Dane! May the Serpent twist his guts! He hides from me, but I will find him. And when I do—Nár! That filthy oathbreaker will pay.”

“Bjarki Half-Dane, eh?”

Grimnir’s eyes snapped up. “You’ve heard of him?”

Njáll shifted to a more comfortable position. “More than that. I know him. Ugly bastard, and too smart for his own good by far. Before I gave my life to Christ, I took the whale-road with Olaf Tryggve’s son. Bjarki sailed with us.”

Aidan listened as Njáll told Grimnir of the raids he had made under Olaf’s banner—the same Olaf who was now Norway’s king. For years, Red Njáll had slaughtered, plundered, and traded from Frisia to the Hebrides and down to the coast of Wessex in England, where he sacked the rich town of Wareham and put its lord, Prince Eothred, to the sword. This Bjarki, Aidan heard, fought alongside them until the Scilly Isles, off the coast of Cornwall.

“That’s where Olaf broke with the Old Ways and became a Christian,” Njáll said. “Now, Bjarki thought of himself as our goði, our priest, and he took Olaf’s conversion hard. They’d sworn a pact to Odin. Bjarki claimed Olaf broke it when he repudiated the Allfather. The rest of us tried to broker peace between them. But, harsh words often lead to harsher blows. Bjarki came against Olaf one morning before sunrise and dealt him a grievous wound before we could drive him off. He escaped by the skin of his teeth—him and a small crew. That was …” The Dane did a quick sum on his fingers. “… four, maybe five years back, and he’s not been seen in the North since, not with King Olaf nursing a grudge.” Njáll yawned. “I left the whale-road last year, after the sack of Exeter, and became a Christian, myself. As far as I know, Bjarki still haunts the waters off the English coast, somewhere between the tip of Cornwall and the mouth of the Thames.”

“He does, eh?” Grimnir spat into the fire. “I’ll find him.” He glanced sharply at Aidan, red eyes boring into him. “You’re English. You know the lay of the land and speak the tongue better than I do. You come with me.”

Aidan’s face hardened at the mention of returning to his native land; he met Grimnir’s gaze with blue eyes as cold and bitter as hoarfrost. “A Jew will sit on Saint Peter’s throne before ever I touch English soil, again. Perhaps a guide can be found for you in Roskilde.”

Grimnir sucked his teeth, the corner of his mouth curling up in a sneer. “Roskilde? Bah!

“Then may God bless your journey,” Aidan said. He looked to Njáll, who had dropped off to sleep. “It is late. We must arise early and take to the road. We thank you for your hospitality.”

Grimnir grunted; he pulled his wolf-skin cloak tighter and rolled over, his back to the fire. Aidan shrugged, fed the flames another bundle of dry hawthorn branches, and stretched out, head cradled in his arm. It only took a few moments for the youth to drop off, his measured breathing joining with the snores ripping from the giant Dane.

Unseen by either man, the skrælingr raised his head. He looked back at Njáll and Aidan, then up to the cave’s entrance, where their donkey shifted and stamped; he nodded to himself. Sinking back down, he stared—gimlet-eyed and cruel—up through the fissure at the star-flecked sky and mimicked the deep breath of sleep.

3

Aidan wakes to the sound of iron nails clawing on stone. He lies in darkness, unmoving; the faint light that filters down into the heart of the cave is gray and cold. He hears it again, something heavy, pulling itself along the floor. Aidan raises his head slightly. A shape moves in the gloom at the back of the cave. Something gnarled and blighted, its black-nailed fingers scrabbling for purchase on cold stone. The stench of putrefaction runs before it like the gale before a squall. Through eyes half open, not daring to breathe, he watches the thing creep into the light—an impossible thing, a thing that should not be: gnarled limbs and a bloated belly, knifelike teeth gleaming from a black thatch of beard woven with thorn and bramble; lifeless eyes, hollow and accusing, pierce Aidan to his core.

“You cannot hide,” the thing hisses, its voice familiar to Aidan. It is the voice of a man from Exeter, a hateful man who has been dead for more than a year, now. Godwin. “You cannot hide, my sweet little whore. Come back to me.”

Aidan screams as the thing’s hard-nailed fingers close around his ankle …

The youth bolted awake, gasping, a name and a prayer both half formed on his lips. “God!” Wild-eyed, he cast about for the thing that had menaced him.

Aidan sat on the frigid cave floor, his breath steaming; morning sunlight lanced down from the overhead fissure to sparkle on the surface of the pool. Pain lanced down his spine and he could yet feel the skin of his ankle tingling where the dream thing had grabbed him. The youth ran a hand through his short coppery hair. Their fire had burned down to a bed of embers. On the other side of it, Njáll lay under his blanket, still gently snoring. Aidan fought the urge to wrap his own blanket back around himself and snatch another hour’s sleep. But it was surely time to be up and about. He stretched and turned …

… and saw Grimnir staring at him from the shadows. An impossible thing, a thing that should not be. He had his seax drawn and was tending to the rune-etched blade with a whetstone.

“How long has the sun been up?” Aidan muttered.

Grimnir stropped the stone along the blade’s edge, a slow and precise rasp—the sound of iron nails clawing on stone; when his inhuman eyes flickered over to the youth, Aidan felt the skin on the back of his neck crawl. The previous night’s conviviality was gone. Now, there was a hatred in his gaze that Aidan could not fathom.

“An hour,” he hissed. “Maybe less.”

Aidan gave a nervous chuckle. “Aren’t we a pair of layabouts? I’ll build up the fire and make a bit of breakfast, then rouse Njáll. Hot food—”

“Best go catch your beast, first.” Grimnir gestured up at the cave mouth with the point of his seax. The donkey was gone. “It chewed through its halter and headed off down the road.”

Aidan clapped a hand to his forehead. “God’s teeth! That animal will be the death of me!” He sprang up and headed up the stairs. An ugly thought burst full-grown into his mind; he paused. “Could you not have stopped it from escaping?”

Grimnir shrugged. “I could have.”

“For the love of God, why didn’t you?”

The skrælingr smiled; there was humor in the gesture, but it was not good-natured or well-meaning. Rather, Aidan got the impression he was playing a malicious prank upon the travelers. “Keep talking, little fool,” Grimnir said. “Your ass will be in Roskilde long before you.” Laughing, he returned his attention to his seax; Aidan bit back a reply and hurried up to the entrance of the cave. Sparing no thought for the length of rope that remained, Aidan pushed through the screen of hawthorn and out into the frigid morning light.

4

Grimnir heard him call the animal’s name, the young fool’s voice fading as he skidded down the slope to the road. Then, with a final susurration of stone on steel, he stood; Grimnir wiped his blade on his kilt, sheathed it, and fixed Njáll’s sleeping form with a look that could curdle milk.

He walked over and kicked the Dane’s feet. “Ho, there, you miserable sluggard. Up! We have business, you and I.” Njáll mumbled a curse. Grimnir kicked him again. “Up, damn you.”

“God rot your bones, skrælingr!” Njáll muttered. “Touch me again and I’ll twist your pox-ridden head off!”

“Try it, you fat-bellied hymn-singer! Up, you lout!”

Njáll pulled himself into a sitting position; he rubbed his eyes and glanced about the cave. Suddenly, he stiffened. “Where’s Aidan?”

Grimnir laughed, a sound like stones sliding into the grave. “I sent your little whore outside. A smart bastard, you are. Very smart, hacking off her hair and making the slut wear the rags of a poor son of Christ. Almost fooled me. Where are you bound for, in truth? Do you take her to the slave markets to the East, or back to your steading? Does she know what you have in store for her?”

“You’re addled!” Njáll said. He stood and pushed past Grimnir, shuffling along to the pool, where he knelt and splashed ice-cold water in his face. “Aidan’s a good man, destined to join the Order of Saint Benedict, and we are bound for Roskilde, like he said.”

“Liar! She bleeds. Her moon is upon her. I can smell it.” Grimnir’s voice became an unctuous purr. “Come, I have good silver. I will buy her from you.”

Njáll straightened, damp beard bristling; there was righteous fury in his eyes as he towered over Grimnir. The latter did not quail. “You profane little wretch! God-forsaken piece of filth! She is a child of the Lord, not chattel to be traded! She—”

She?” Grimnir hissed.

Njáll dropped any pretense at hiding the truth. Aidan was a woman. “Aye, she! We go to Roskilde, she and I. Once there, she will serve the Church as best she can, and none will be the wiser! It is God’s will!”

“And what will they do to her when they find out her little secret, eh?”

“That’s none of your concern!”

“What will you do, Christ-Dane? That’s the question … will you raise your axe against them, when they come for her? And they will, you know it in your bones. I can smell the fear you carry for her. It rots your faith, you filthy oathbreaker. Repent to your Nailed God and give the girl to me. I’ll keep her safe.”

“Shut your mouth, you poisonous little worm!” Njáll rounded on the skrælingr. Only the ancient bonds of hospitality kept his hands from Grimnir’s throat. “Go back to the shadows and pray to your foul gods that the next time we meet you don’t leave this world with my axe buried in your miserable skull! She is my charge, and I will do everything I can to keep her safe! And I will die before I allow harm to come to her!” Njáll shouldered Grimnir aside.

Grimnir snarled. “So be it!”

Quick as a snake, he lashed out and kicked the Dane in the back of the left knee; that leg crumpled. The blow pitched Njáll off balance. Before he could recover—before he could so much as react—a second kick caught him between the shoulder blades and drove him forward, onto his face. Air whuffed from Njáll’s lungs.

The Dane gasped. He struggled to draw breath even as he struggled to rise, to fight back. Grimnir gave him no opportunity. Disdaining his seax, he leapt full upon Njáll’s broad back, straddling him and driving his head into the stone floor of the cave. Cartilage crunched; blood spurted from the Dane’s crushed nose. Tear-blind and roaring with rage, Njáll thrashed like a wounded beast and lurched upright. He clawed at Grimnir. If he could but get his hands on him …

Grimnir, though, was a relentless foe. He clung to the Dane’s back and hammered blow after blow into the side of his head. Njáll twisted. He staggered, blowing a bloody froth through his mashed lips. Grimnir’s horny fist connected once more, crushing his eye socket and bruising the soft flesh of his temple. Njáll crashed to his knees and in that instant Grimnir gained both purchase and leverage. Iron fingers closed around the Dane’s throat and choked off his bellow of agony.

5