Geirmund's Saga, Page 2

  Geirmund pulled this moveable bed alongside his brother and gently rolled Hámund onto it, and after strapping his brother’s body to the sled along with his bow and other weapons, they were ready to depart.

  It would be dangerous to travel at night, but Geirmund worried it would be more dangerous to linger there, not only because of the wolves but because of the risk to his brother. Hámund needed the cunning of a healer back in Avaldsnes, one who possessed the skill to prevent that wound from turning putrid, and he needed that care quickly. To delay would almost certainly mean Hámund’s death.

  Geirmund lowered the wolf carcasses to the snow and left them for their pack, should they return, for he knew that wolves would sometimes eat their own, but if not, they would find the body of the red deer waiting for them. He cut a few large pieces of meat from the buck’s haunches, just enough to feed himself and his brother on the return journey, and left the rest behind.

  Then he took the cord he’d used to truss the wolves and tied it around the birch poles in loops that he could cross over his chest and shoulders. This would allow his back to carry most of the burden, leaving his hands free to steady the poles and keep the sled level. But as he hoisted the load for the first time, the combined weight of his brother’s body, the wolf pelts, and the birch poles took his breath and caused him to stumble before he’d even taken his first step.

  “Thór grant me strength,” he whispered, straining to regain his footing.

  A moment later, he set off.

  2

  After a night, a day, another night, and another day had passed, the muscles in Geirmund’s shoulders finally went numb where the merciless cords pressed like axe blades into his flesh. His feet had also numbed from the weight pressing his heels into the ground and from the snow and ice that received them, and his stiff back creaked like an old oak one storm away from falling. The poles had scraped his hands raw through his gloves, and his chest burned, deep inside, where the icy air he inhaled met the fire of his lungs.

  It was past dawn on the third day, and during the night he had finally come down out of the rocks and snow of the mountains, into the lowlands where the open fields and meadows gave him less trouble. In some places the long grass, wet with rain, offered soft and slippery ground over which to drag the sled, which made the going easier for a time.

  But that did not last, either.

  As the sun approached its midday mark, the pain that had been his enemy was replaced by a far deadlier opponent. The muscles in Geirmund’s legs and arms quavered with exhaustion, and his joints and ligaments felt loose and frayed. Where pain had been a direct assault against which he could rally and throw himself, fatigue was an endless siege, content to wait until he had used up every store he had in reserve and so depleted fell at last. To withstand it, he knew he needed sleep, but he had hoped to reach Avaldsnes without stopping, thus far allowing himself only the briefest of rests to assess Hámund’s condition, cook the deer meat, and chew a few bites of it, only twice closing his eyes for a span shy of dreaming. But he realized now he did not have a choice. His body could take no more.

  He sighted a stand of hazel trees near a small pond some acre-lengths ahead and decided it would do well as a resting place. Having attained it, he lowered his brother to the ground and then collapsed into the wet leaves and ruined nutshells, enveloped by the dank, sweet scent of mouldering vegetation.

  Before he allowed himself to sleep, he checked Hámund for colour and fever, and though his brother’s dun face still looked pale, his forehead was not hot to the touch, which Geirmund took for a good sign. His brother had seemed lost in a fitful sleep since falling senseless, mumbling at times and calling out at others, but never with his full wits. Geirmund thought his present state a kindness, given the pain and discomfort he would surely feel otherwise, and so long as it did not bode ill for him. For that reason Geirmund hadn’t tried to rouse him and didn’t do so now as he finally raised the anchor on his own mind and let the tide take him where it would. When he opened his eyes again, it was night, and he was shivering.

  Pain had returned, but Geirmund welcomed it, and he now possessed a will renewed to confront it. With gritted teeth he climbed to his feet and gathered wood for a small fire, planning to examine his brother by its light and warm himself before attempting the final effort of his journey. But he was surprised to find Hámund’s eyes open and watching him.

  “How do you feel?” Geirmund asked, crossing to him.

  “Itchy. These wolf pelts have fleas.” Hámund attempted a grin. “I’d also feel better if I could take a piss and a shit.”

  Geirmund chuckled and loosed the straps holding his brother to the sled, then helped him to his feet. “Mind your arm. Don’t try to raise it.”

  “I’m not sure I could, even if you hadn’t tied it down.”

  Hámund hobbled just beyond the reach of the firelight, and Geirmund waited a while before calling to him. In reply, Hámund returned wordlessly and lay back down on the sled with a groan of pain. Geirmund offered him the last few bites of cold deer meat that he’d roasted the day before, or the day before that. It was hard to remember.

  “Where are we?” Hámund asked.

  Geirmund sat down across the fire from him. “I hope to reach the hall before nightfall tomorrow.”

  His brother stopped chewing. “You’ve carried me all this way?”

  Geirmund tossed another length of hazelwood onto the flames, sending up sparks and a plume of deep and nutty smoke. “What else should I have done? You were too lazy to walk.”

  “That I was.” Hámund laughed, winced, and took another bite of meat. “I’m afraid I’m still feeling lazy.”

  Geirmund could see the pride and concern in his brother’s eyes and knew his thoughts as well as he knew his own. Hámund didn’t have the strength to walk, but also didn’t want to be a burden. Geirmund shrugged. “Another day is nothing to me.”

  “But it’s something to me,” Hámund said. “I’m the one getting flea-bitten.”

  “You were already flea-bitten. Your clan of fleas and the wolf clan could hold an Althing.”

  Hámund chuckled, then winced again. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “I doubt you’ll have any cause for laughter once we set off.” Geirmund rose and scooped up a clump of wet leaves with both hands. He dropped this onto the small fire and stamped out the flames, plunging the stand of hazel trees into darkness. “Are you ready?”

  Hámund looked up at the night sky and its stars, as if trying to determine how close they were to dawn. “Now?”

  “Yes. I think we must.” Geirmund brushed the leaves from his hands and his voice grew weighty without his intending it to. “You need a healer with skill greater than mine.”

  Hámund nodded, slowly. “Then I suppose we must.”

  Geirmund moved to strap his brother to the sled once more, for the last time, but this time, Hámund was awake enough to groan in pain. The sound of his suffering roused Geirmund’s pity, but did nothing to change what must be done, and for Hámund’s part he gave not a single word to any complaint he might have offered, simply closing his lips and his eyes tightly through his ordeal. But as Geirmund finished, he did make a request.

  “Give me my sword.”

  Geirmund paused. “Your sword?”

  “To hold in my hand.”

  Geirmund realized then the meaning behind his brother’s desire and tried to wave away his fears. “Fate isn’t done with you. And neither is Father. He’d go to Valhalla himself to fetch you back from–”

  “Please, brother.” Hámund opened his hand near his chest. “My sword.”

  Whether it was necessary or not, Geirmund could find no good reason to refuse his brother the honour of having his sword in his hand should he reach the end of his life’s thread before they reached Avaldsnes. Inwardly, he swore that he would outpace the Norns and their
shears as he untied Hámund’s sword from where he had secured it and pulled it from its scabbard. The weapon had a blade of fine steel from Frakkland, a gift from their father before Hámund’s first sea voyage that, as far as Geirmund knew, had never tasted the blood of man or beast. It had a grip wound with leather cord, and a hilt and pommel inlaid with intricate wheel patterns in silver and gold. The ripples and whorls that curled through its cold length shone like a river in the starlight.

  “If you drop it, I’m not going back for it,” Geirmund said with false severity.

  “I know.”

  He stuck the end of the blade under one of the straps near his brother’s knees to hold it somewhat in place, should his brother’s grasp fail, and placed the hilt in his brother’s open hand.

  “Thank you.” Hámund tightened his fist around it and pulled it close to his heart.

  Geirmund nodded and moved to his position near the head of the sled, then knelt to slip the cords over his shoulders. When he lifted his brother, the weight on those cords cut into his shoulders with fresh ferocity, and he wondered if he would even be able to row an oar after this, when the time finally came for him to sail on his own ship.

  “I think you’re lighter,” he said. “My thanks to you for having that shit.”

  Hámund chuckled behind him, his laughter quickly smothered by a moan, and his groans did not cease when Geirmund leaned into the cords and the sled lurched forward.

  He did his best to seek the even ground as he followed a stretch of lowland between the Ålfjord to the north and the Skjoldafjord to the south, but it was still dark. Jostling and bumping were inevitable, and with each jolt Hámund seemed to groan louder. For much of that night Geirmund used the stars to stay on course, but lost those guides just before dawn behind a thick bank of cloud that brought thunder and rain. Hámund fell silent then, even though Geirmund’s feet slipped more often on the wet ground, causing him to tip the sled. He stopped to make sure his brother hadn’t taken a turn for the worse and fallen senseless again but found him simply stoic.

  “Can you at least cover my head,” he said through clenched teeth, his face aimed skyward, eyes closed, with raindrops trapped in his lashes.

  “Of course, I should have–” Geirmund pulled the hood of Hámund’s cloak up and over as far as he could, reaching the end of his nose. “That’s the best I can do.”

  Hámund nodded, but barely, the knuckles of his sword hand white.

  Geirmund sighed and took up his yoke again like an ox. The rain fell hard and cold and it soaked through his cloak, leather and furs at the seams, but he came at last into a farming country with roads. To the south-east a swell of rocky land rose bald and grey, but he aimed his path around it to the south, near the shore of the Skjoldafjord, and as the morning wore on, the rain eased, and a mist rolled down from the heights to gather in the low places and on the water. Geirmund followed the shoreline of the fjord, and after that the edge of a lake.

  The roads should have made the going easier, but rain had turned them into mires that sucked at Geirmund’s boots and grabbed the ends of the sled’s poles, caking both in heavy mud. His pace slowed even as his body strained at the limits of his strength, and his heart felt ready to burst. Twice his legs simply went out from under him, dropping him and his brother into the muck, and on the third time he simply lay there, unsure whether he could even get to his feet again.

  “Is there a house in sight?” Hámund asked. “Or a place to seek shelter?”

  “Not yet,” Geirmund said, hand at his chest as he struggled to catch his breath, though he did smell woodsmoke. “And even… if there were, I would– I would still… need to fetch a healer and… that would take too much time.”

  Geirmund found his knees, and from there he got to his feet.

  “I can wait for a healer,” Hámund said. “Find a place to leave me and go.”

  Geirmund yoked himself once more. “I’m not leaving you anywhere.”

  “But you can’t–”

  “I said, I won’t–” Geirmund had tried to raise his voice, but the effort only robbed him of breath. “I’m not leaving you.”

  He thought about taking the sled off the road to seek easier terrain, but the surrounding barley fields had been harvested and looked even more impassable than the way ahead. There was nothing for it but to keep moving. Nothing other than the road and the mud and the fathoms and rests he had yet to trudge, even if he fell a thousand times more. He soon lost track of the distances between far-off hillocks and trees, his awareness honed to only the stretch between each step, and he thought about nothing beyond the reach of his weakening stride. He ignored even his growing certainty that he would not, could not, last much longer, and they would not reach home. He kept moving.

  Eventually, the rain clouds scattered, and sunlight set the wet world a-shimmer. When they arrived at the northern spear point of the Førresfjord, they turned south-west and followed its shore towards the Karmsund strait and home. Though perhaps less cold, Geirmund gained no strength from the change in weather, and found he now had to squint against the glare that struck his eyes from the many puddles in the road.

  “Do you hear that?” Hámund asked.

  “Hear… what?”

  “Horses. Riders.”

  Geirmund stopped and tried to listen over the deafening roar of exertion in his ears. Hámund was right. There were travellers ahead of them, just around the next bend, by the sound of it. Their voices carried over the mired roads, cursing the mud and the rain.

  “Too loud to be outlaws,” Hámund said.

  He was right again. Outlaws did not travel the roads except to wait in hiding in lonely places for travellers to murder and plunder. But before Geirmund could muster his senses to decide if it would be prudent to avoid them anyway, the travellers appeared. A moment after that, the riders called out, having seen them, and Geirmund thought he recognized the rough and familiar voice of Steinólfur. He wondered if a madness or delirium had taken him as the riders rushed towards them, but when they drew near Geirmund saw not only Steinólfur but also his young charge, Skjalgi, a lad with an unmistakable scar over his left eye. They rode with four other men from Avaldsnes, and they covered the stretch of road between their company and Geirmund as if it were no more than a homefield. Geirmund nearly swayed on his feet with relief at the sight of them.

  “Hold!” Steinólfur called, pulling up his reins a few paces away. “Geirmund, is that you?”

  “It is,” Geirmund said. A trembling seized his arms.

  “What is that sled you’re dragging?” Steinólfur dismounted and strode towards him. “Where is Hámund?”

  “That sled is Hámund,” Hámund said.

  Skjalgi had also dismounted, and the two men rushed up to take the sled poles from Geirmund’s hands. They had to pry the staves loose, not because Geirmund refused to let go but because he could not make his fingers open. Skjalgi then took the weight of the sled with his arms while Steinólfur lifted the cords from Geirmund’s shoulders.

  “By the gods,” he whispered as he looked into Geirmund’s eyes. “What happened to you?”

  “Wolves,” Hámund said.

  “Wolves?” Skjalgi slowly laid the sled down on the ground. “Where?”

  “Perhaps a hard day’s ride from here,” Geirmund said. “Near Olund.”

  “Olund?” Steinólfur shook his head. “You were meant to be hunting squirrels. Your father has parties out searching for you, but none as far as Olund.”

  “We wanted more than squirrels,” Hámund said.

  “Steinólfur, listen to me.” Geirmund had finally found the words to say what needed to be said. “My brother is injured, badly, under his arm. He needs a healer.”

  Steinólfur looked down at Hámund. “Can you ride?”

  “I can,” Hámund said. “But it would be a very short ride.”

&nb
sp; “He’ll need someone to hold him steady,” Geirmund said.

  One of the company spoke up, a man called Egil. “My horse can carry the Hel-hide.”

  Geirmund ignored his use of that name, though he hated it, for no one who used it meant it as a true insult.

  Steinólfur nodded and said, “Egil’s horse is the strongest.” He motioned the rider over and called for Skjalgi to untie Hámund from the sled. Then he turned back to Geirmund. “And what about you? That arm does not look well.”

  Geirmund glanced down. He had forgotten about his own injury, and by now his blood had dried in the layers of his sleeves, mixed with mud where the fabric and leather had torn. “I haven’t tended to it yet.”

  “Let me,” Steinólfur said, “after your brother is on his way.”

  Geirmund then watched as Egil approached on his powerful horse, a stallion with a golden coat and mane, and then several men gathered to lift Hámund into the saddle in front of the horse’s rider. When he was settled, Steinólfur addressed the others in his party.

  “Skjalgi and I will come behind you with Geirmund. You must see that Hámund reaches King Hjörr’s hall before the sun sets.”

  The riders all nodded in assent, and a moment later Geirmund watched them gallop away bearing his brother, mud flying high into the air from their horses’ hooves.

  “I must go with him,” he said. “We must–”

  “You’re not going anywhere until I’ve looked at your arm.” Steinólfur led Geirmund off the road into the shade under a large ash tree, and Geirmund was too exhausted to protest. “After that,” Steinólfur added, “you can tell me why you didn’t just leave Hámund to die.”