Animals We Made

Years of Strange Iron | Part 10

Gudmund stoked the fire, and it whipped its many orange tails at the night. He loathed the quiet between combat. Soon there'd be nothing to kill for or to die for, and the prospect tormented him worse than he'd admit even to himself.

"The iron consumes." He scratched at his beard. "No matter. I think Einar lives. We never found his body, so was he devoured whole, or—?"

"I'm ruined!" whined the noseless Viking, fingering the moist, shredded hole in the center of his face where just one of his nasal bones protruded. " 'Tis the end of you and me. Why, the reapers will come and harvest us! I fear their scythes. How'll we resist this inevitable misfortune, the consequences of our wickedness?"

Impaled on a lengthy branch planted in the snow, Einar's dismembered arm hung over the flames.

"We are mercenaries," Gudmund reflected.

The noseless Viking jingled in his chainmail. "And?"

"You know, idiot." Gudmund watched the fire blacken Einar's severed arm. "Count on an immeasurable lack of decency in our final hours."

Ravens perched in the oaks under which the men aimed to spend the night. The birds cocked their heads, perhaps knowingly. Abyss-eyed, devout, these scavengers let no human gesture escape their judgment.

The noseless Viking withdrew Einar's arm from the flames. Gudmund used a small blunt knife to cut the limb in half, dividing his portion and offering the rest to the other man.

Human flesh never tasted wonderful.

"Eat with reverence," said Gudmund, chewing slow. "Our duty to Ullr for the meal."

"Ullr, your hope and mine." The noseless raider gnawed wildly at the flesh. "He—mmm—provides us sustenance through our enemies so that we—mmm—absorb their integrity on the journey to Kaupang."

Quicker now, the Vikings ate on while snow zipped about them. Under their bottoms it was a dampening pillow. They traded stories of the coast, where the evil iron had formed a rim around the ocean to keep the waters in, gaping like a humongous unblinking eye.

"We're vandals, pitiless, depraved." Gudmund licked clean the knobby bones of Einar's arm. "Have you not studied the ways of the ruthless? A wolf doesn't master the hunt overnight. Our place is not among civilized folk."

"Hmm, then where must we migrate?" said the noseless Viking. "To another world?"

Gudmund adjusted his ragged furs. He peered up at the stars—a thousand eyes that, different from the iron ocean, blinked and winked. Comets ribboned across the sky, marring it with linear flashes.

"Another world." He examined the nub where his pinky had been hacked off. "Aye, another."

"Oh, my king, how shall we get there?"

"By persevering."

"Is this a test?"

"No." Gudmund squinted at the moon, which appeared brighter than usual. " 'Tis but an end, Inge."

Now the Vikings wrung the oily flesh juices from their beards. Icicles tapered and plipped overhead. The firelight caused them to glitter like upside-down volcanoes, and Europe wasn't all sorrow.

Gudmund noticed a raven waddle toward him. It cocked its head as the others of its kind—lurking in the trees—were doing. They made him ill though he believed they would purify this valley of its rot.

Something had to.

"A visitor," said Gudmund to the waddling bird.

It flapped onto his shoulder and croaked, "Prick!"