Part 41 (2/2)
Still, no luck.
That night, in the church, the noises came and departed. Ragnor slept deeply until something startled him awake.
He realized that he lay against the wall alone, that Nari was no longer with him.
He swore violently, rising. The pews had been dragged away from the door. He went to the entrance and found that his brother and a few of the men were ahead of them. ”They've gotten in!” Hagan told Peter angrily when the monk would have detained them.
”They have not gotten in!” Peter said. ”Nari has fallen to the temptation.”
”Where was your G.o.d?” Hagan demanded angrily.
”Not in Nari's soul,” Peter said.
Ragnor listened, but ignored them. He was sliding his great battle sword into its sheath at his waist and preparing to ride. ”Give me what weapons you will, Peter. I am going after them. Give me your crosses, what you call holy, and we will go.”
”You fools! Don't you understand? The cross will aid you only if you believe in its power, just as the creatures cannot come in here, because they have a bloodthirst in their souls.”
”Then give me no aid. I am going,” Ragnor said.
Peter ran after them when they departed the church, but to no avail. They rode out, a Viking party of twenty hardened warriors with s.h.i.+elds, swords, battle-axes, maces and spikes as their weapons. In the deep of the night, it was hard to find the trail. Ulric found the human footprints, followed by those of a four-footed creature with padded paws and long claws.
”Bah, what monsters!” Hagan cried. ”We are tormented by a pack of wolves.”
And he would have spurred his horse to race forward in fury if Ragnor hadn't stopped him. ”Wolves don't make fluttering sounds, like the wings that we have heard.”
”There are wolves ahead now, and we will stop them.”
”And take care as we go.”
”It is your woman they have taken,” Hagan said.
”And I will get her back. But we ride with care.”
Through the darkness, they continued, the moon and the torches they carried gave a little illumination against the night. In time they came to a high tor, and in the forest surrounding it, the entrance to a cave, or shelter.
Hagan dismounted.
”Brother, take care!” Ragnor warned.
But Hagan shouted back, ”I am not the seventh son of the seventh son, but I am a child of the great warrior wolf of our people, and I will not fear a fight! Men who would dine in Valhalla, follow me!”
They drew their weapons and headed for the cave. Gunther, known as a berserker in battle, strode ahead, and before the others even reached the dark shadows of the entry, he had let out a cry like a man meeting a hundred swords with bare flesh and bone. They came upon them then, the enemy. They were men, and they were not. They had the darker skins of the Mediterraneans and the lighter skins of the Northern peoples. They were not so many-perhaps a dozen, and there were women among them. They didn't seem to need to stand on solid ground, but could move in the blink of an eye, rise to the air, disappear into smoke, or vapor, or air.
Ragnor rushed forward in defense of the men. The enemy did not fight with weapons, but with their bare hands.
And teeth.
They were wolves, or could appear as wolves, men one minute, creatures the next. He came into the fray, slas.h.i.+ng. Then he remembered the monk's warning, and he went after the creatures with his sword swinging with a direct purpose, that of beheading the enemy.
Two went down, three, but he found that he was fighting ever more alone because the Vikings were so quickly torn asunder by their foes. Four, five, six ... and he stood alone, swinging in every direction, sword in his hand. He saw them coming together, forming a circle around him. Lean, thin, dark-skinned fighters in animal furs, then a tall man with the look of the North, a woman who might have come from somewhere in the East...
They weren't speaking, but they were communicating somehow. Closing the circle. He hefted his sword in a tremendous sweeping arc, trying to bring down as many as he could ..
Then they were upon them. He felt the agony as his flesh ripped. Blood seemed to rush before his eyes . . .
And then darkness.
He came into consciousness late the next day. He was on the ground, and his first thought was amazement that he could be alive. Then he felt a tremendous pain, and an agony of thirst. Gritting his teeth, he sat up and looked around. His men lay all around him.
Mostly in pieces.
He staggered to his feet.
He felt some strength. If only he had water, he could pick up his dead. He could burn the remains. He could ...
Water. He needed water.
He looked to the cave, and he looked to the sky. The winter's frail sun now seemed to be merciless. He staggered to the cave, forgetting the enemy, determined to escape the sun. Inside, he found that the enemy was gone. Slumped against the wall he found Nari. She appeared dead, but she had not been torn apart. He looked at her more closely; she wasn't quite dead.
He looked for water. For himself, and to revive her. There was none.
A rat raced by him. He stunned himself, reaching out with lightning speed, catching the rat, biting into it like a madman ... draining it. He looked at the carca.s.s with horror and threw it across the cave. But his strength and will to live had overcome his disgust He rose and left the cave to gather wood. As he started to build a fire for a ma.s.s funeral pyre, he heard the sounds of hoofbeats, and when he stood, waiting, his sword at the ready against whatever enemy came, he saw that the monks were grimly riding to the scene.
Peter didn't seem surprised to see him standing. ”The others?” he asked.
”They are as you see.”
”Burn them.”
”As I was doing.”
”Did you find Nari?”
”She is in the cave.”
”I will see to her.”
Peter's words disturbed Ragnor. ”You will leave her be!” he thundered.
”She must be destroyed.”
”They did not kill her. Perhaps she was taken to draw us out.”
Peter ignored him. Ragnor went after the monk, catching him by the arm, flinging him around to face him. An overwhelming desire to tear into the monk, rip him apart with teeth and bare hands, seized him. He gritted his teeth hard, in agony to stop himself from such brutality. ”Leave her be!” he commanded. ”We will burn the dead.”
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