Deep Midnight (Alliance Vampires #3)

Deep Midnight (Alliance Vampires #3) Page 40

At thirteen, he was to sail with his oldest brother, Hagan. They would stop in the islands north of Scotland, held by Norse jarls, then head south and raid a village along the Hebrides where it was rumored that monks had come from France with reliquaries of gold fashioned by fine goldsmiths in Paris.

The Norsemen had no interest in the fragile pieces of bone and ash so reverently contained in the gold vessels; they only wanted the precious metal.

Sailing was good; he loved it. He didn’t mind the backbreaking labor of rowing the great dragon-pronged ship when there was no wind, and he loved a storm at sea. The wind sweeping the sky, the roiling gray, the black toss of the waves, all created a tempest that made him feel very alive, a warrior against the obstacles set forth by the gods.

The islands where his distant cousins ruled, slave-masters of many of the original inhabitants were intriguing. He had never seen so many different peoples: many were short, dark-haired, and spoke a strange language that he found fascinating. There, on the isles, they were refitted for their travels; they practiced with arms, and held contests to win women, armor, weapons, and shields. All was going well until one of their hosts heard word of the treasure they had come to seize from farther south; the inhabitants of the isles felt that the treasure was more rightly theirs, and heated arguments arose, near to a drawing of swords and an all-out massacre between them. But rising from his seat around the huge fire in the jarl’s circular hall, Hagan boasted that his brother had been born under a special sign, therefore he could best a man twice his height, and twice his size. His brother, seventh son of the seventh son, born beneath the black moon of deep midnight, would fight their strongest, most able man. They would fight to the death, and the men of the victor would be the warriors to seek the prize.

Ragnor was stunned?as stunned as those laughing at him?and though he could not humiliate his brother, he wasn’t at all sure why it seemed his brother was intent on his murder. The jarl assessed him carefully.

Ragnor informed him that this destined prowess of his had yet to be tested, but the jarl demanded that the fight should follow as Hagan had suggested. He called to one of his champions, a man called Olaf the Giant.

Olaf had been aptly named; he appeared as wide as he was tall, and his height was staggering, but there was nothing in the man run to fat or drink. His breadth was muscle. At thirteen, Ragnor was lean despite his customary work with heavy weapons and the monotonous labor of rowing. The gods expected courage when he stood before Olaf the Giant, but Ragnor could not meet his soon-to-be slayer without a look at his brother that indicated his feelings of betrayal. He knew, however, that it would be far better to fall to one of Olaf’s massive blows than to act the coward and face the fury of his fellow Vikings. He stepped onto the dirt patch before the fire that was assigned as the fighting place. He was granted three shields and three weapons. He chose an axe, a mace and a sword.

He had barely stepped forward, barely hoisted his wooden shield, when Olaf bore down on him, vowing to give him a quick and painless death and allow him a “child’s” place among the gods. Olaf’s one simple swing of his battle-axe shattered Ragnor’s shield into splinters. He retreated, taking up the next shield handed to him. The shield was barely in his grasp before Olaf was coming toward him again, raising his battle-axe.

This next time, Ragnor leaped aside; Olaf’s swing missed, and his giant axe swung hard into the earthen flooring.

“Kill him now! It’s your chance!” his brother roared.

But all he had known thus far was the role of student, and so Ragnor hesitated. Olaf brought his weapon from the ground and came at him, swinging again.

Ragnor ducked and circled around, to the great amusement of the onlookers. When Olaf shattered his second shield, Ragnor dropped the mace as well as the remnants of protective wood; he then picked up his sword.

When the giant came forward, laughing and drawing back his axe, Ragnor sped forward, striking instantly and with dead precision.

Ragnor caught him in the throat. Olaf, amazed, dropped his weapon and clasped his throat with both hands.

Blood gushed through the man’s fingers. For seconds that seemed an eternity, Olaf stared at Ragnor.

Then he fell dead to the floor.

Men all around him cheered. His brother rushed forward and hoisted him on his shoulders. He should have felt the elation of his fellow men. He felt hollow instead.

That night, the Jarl of the isles gave Ragnor a shield fronted with silver, an ancient bequest brought back from the ruins of an ancient Roman village on the mainland far to the south. The jarl awarded him two women as well, presents from a group who had gone a-Viking all the way to the lands of the yellow people.

He didn’t mind the gift of the women at all. They taught him things he had never imagined. But despite the drink he consumed and the energy required from the women, he didn’t sleep that night.

He should have died.

The next morning, he accosted his brother.

“You were quick to risk my life.”

“I never risked your life.”

“He was twice my size, brutal.”

“But you are our father’s seventh son.”

“So I’m immortal? A child of the gods?” he scoffed.

Hagan put out a finger, touching him directly on the forehead. “The seventh son of the wolf, who is the seventh son of the wolf. And a child of deep midnight, conceived of the hour, born of the hour. You have the cunning of the wolf, and the hunger, and the loyalty.”

“And that kept me alive?”

Hagan shrugged with a broad grin. “Well, I had heard that it would do so. And now I have proof.”

“You risked my life!” Ragnor said again angrily.

“A Viking does not live forever. And his place in the halls of Valhalla is great only if he has performed great deeds on earth.”

The following day, they left, striking out for the rich treasure they sought.

When they came ashore, Ragnor was sickened by the carnage. His brother’s men set upon the little community of monks with a vengeance.

Men with tonsures, clad in brown wool, raced about screaming, dropping to their knees, crying for their One True God. Hagan laughed and ignored them, slicing them as he approached their place of worship.

Ragnor followed behind, trying to remind himself that he was a youth here, that they would call him a girl, weak as a woman, if he decried the violence.

But they had set him up to battle a giant; he had some say.

So he shouted with such force that he caused them to halt and stare at him. “Leave them! Leave them be!” he demanded. And striding forward, he snatched the skinny man his brother was about to skewer from Hagan’s hands.

“You’ve come for treasure. Take the treasure.”

“Are you a coward?” Ulric, one of the fiercest warriors shouted. “The seventh son of the seventh son? a coward?” Ulric roared with laughter.

“I haven’t such courage as you, to slice up men who are not even armed. The gods would mock you. A warrior! A man who slays men who are like sheep!”

There was silence among them.

“Get the treasure!” Ragnor insisted.

The monks were too stunned to protest; he thought later that many would have died to save their relics.

One stood at the doorway to the monastery, a very tall man. “Take the silver and gold, leave what means nothing to you?the bone and the ash.”

“The bone and the ash are the earth’s!” Hagan ordered.

“Leave them their talismans,” Ragnor said. “I have heard of the halls of Valhalla, and what I have heard is that the greatest warriors know when to give mercy.”

The Vikings swore as they let the remaining monks house their precious relics in the stoneware dishes which were surely meant for their meals. But the precious relics were left behind. Before they left, the tall monk found Ragnor perched on a rock, waiting.

“I had visions that you would come,” the monk told him.

Ragnor looked at him skeptically. The monk smiled.

“Don’t bother me, or I’ll let them slit your throat.”

“A lad with fire,” the monk murmured, “but a lad, still, nonetheless.”

“Not anymore.”

“It will be years before you are full grown. But I prayed years ago, knowing that the Viking ships were busy again. And God answered me in a dream, telling me not to fear. You would come to protect us.”

“I came to steal silver.”

The monk shrugged. He pulled a pendant from around his neck and held it out to Ragnor. Ragnor nearly hit him when he reached out to pull it over his head.

“Silver, not stolen, but given. It is set with jewels? and a relic said to come from the very body of John the Baptist.”

“I don’t believe?”

“You will. You are the seventh son of the seventh son, you know. But not the seventh son of your mother.”

Ragnor frowned.

“Your father took her from these shores years ago. She was a healer, a pagan child, brought to the church. Your father was blessed?or cursed?with the way of power. Your mother knew the way of the earth.”

“You’re a fool, old man. How can you know all this?”

“To you, he is Odin. To the Romans, Jove. He is greater than they ever knew, but one and the same.

And so I know.”

The monk left him. Later that night, he asked Hagan about his father. Hagan, enjoying a fat leg of the holy men’s sheep, shrugged. “Three wives. Maida, whom he loved as a child, my mother. Ingrid, whom he stole from the Danes. Elspeth, your mother, whom he seized from a raid just north of here, many years ago.”

Later, as they sailed away, he saw the monk at the stairs of the monastery again, watching them go. The monk lifted his hand.

Angry, Ragnor did not respond.

They did not return to Norway. News of their exploit with the monks traveled, and rather than making them appear weak, they found that their services were being sought by many nobles, of their own kind ruling the isles, of the various lords of the peoples of Scotland, and the rihts, or kings of Eire well. They even traveled down to Sicily. Hagan listened to those who would hire their services, and as was the right among Norsemen, the men were free to choose to fight or to refuse that particular battle.