The Wolf Read online

  He was nodding. “Auxilia.”

  “Roman auxilia, some of the first Augustus had ever raised,” I agreed.

  “But you found your solutions with the Hermanduri?” he asked. “You found friends.”

  I smiled ruefully. “Friends? I suppose I might have. But I didn’t. The Bear has few friends. Any man so touched by Lok ruins his friendships. Oh, the Hermanduri. I found men I worked with, and against. And women. They are the most numerous of the Suebi tribes, and we had quite an adventure with them, we did.”

  I leaned back, and he smiled. “So. One week. You shall tell me all of it.”

  I nodded. “One week, and we are done, Marcus. I will tell you what happened, just before I had to leave Germania, and then, you and I shall part ways. I drink to that!”

  “Oh, we shall toast to that,” Marcus said happily. “Drink!”

  We drank several cups, and thus fortified, we settled on our seats.

  “Listen,” I said, and we both smiled, knowing it would all soon end, one way or another.

  BOOK 1: THE RED RAVEN

  “You chose a bad time to visit the land. There’s a group of men I must settle some scores with, and a woman or two, if you believe it.”

  The Red Raven to Maroboodus

  CHAPTER 1

  “You must stop to think,” Bero said miserably, as I led his horse through a thick tangle of firs. His arms and hands were tied down with leather straps and were raw as a butchered hare. I felt little pity for the man. I would never truly pity him. He went on. “Please, Maroboodus. Think. We have ruined each other. How much more can either one of us lose?”

  I laughed softly. “How much more? Lives, we can both lose lives. In fact, some of us must lose them for this to end. Shut up, Uncle,” I said, tired of his voice. “Be quiet. We have a long way to go today. Even your horse hates the sound of your voice. It sounds like a mewling, starving kitten caught in the snow without its mother. And still, you are no kitten. You are a rat. No man so unkind and greedy can tell anyone else to be sensible. No matter how insensible that man is, you cannot.”

  “Maroboodus,” he said, and then screamed as a branch struck his face painfully. The horse indeed hated his voice, and it almost seemed it picked the heaviest thickets to make him suffer.

  I laughed bitterly. “Maroboodus, Maroboodus, you cry. Not even your bastard son Maino can stand you. Not even he loves that noise. He is out there with Father, happy for the brooding silence. My father is sure to be quiet, isn’t he?” I said, as we made our way down the river’s bank. “He is like that, when he is determined to kill someone.” I gave him an evil look. “That new wife of yours. The pretty, young thing? Cherusci? You think Father takes comfort in her? He has Erse and might be married to her, but perhaps he sees what you saw, and they are not so quiet in the night?”

  He looked away, and I laughed softly.

  “Hulderic is too honorable,” he said. Apparently, he had been thinking about it. I had taken him on his wedding night, and he had not even touched her. She was of a noble blood and a valuable ally, and Bero suffered for the loss. She had been beautiful.

  His suffering made me happy, no matter if it was Father who was after us.

  “Where are we even going?” he asked finally. “Do you know?”

  I shook my head. We were headed south, ever south. There were rivers, lakes, and vast woods all around us, and huge mountains to the south and lesser ones to the southwest. The river seemed to run for the lesser ones and would likely run through them. That’s what Ingulf thought, though he was often wrong.

  “We shall ride on, Bero,” I told him. “Ride and ride, until the horses have stubs as legs.” It was a lie, but it tortured him terribly.

  We would not escape into a new world as long as my father’s fifteen men, Maino, Harmod, and their guides followed us relentlessly. He was right. He said it again.

  “It must end.”

  He was right. It did have to end.

  “How long can this go on?” Bero asked, desperate for an answer. “How long must we do this? How far are you willing to run, Maroboodus? To the ends of Midgard, the very ends, and over the edge? Face him and make peace.”

  I said nothing. I knew what he would ask, then.

  “If you won’t face him, then let me go, and I tell your father to let go of you,” he begged me, swaying on his saddle. “We are brothers. He will listen to me. He will let you go and live your life, if you but let me go.”

  “Oh, aye,” I laughed. “He will let go of his oath to kill the Bear, the cursed bastard who shall bring doom to the world. He will let go of his monstrous pride—”

  He actually snorted with disgust at that.

  “His monstrous pride,” I said savagely, and jerked his horse forward, “and he will let me go.”

  “He will,” he said softly, unsure. “I know my brother.”

  “And I, my father,” I snarled. “If one is to believe you won’t chase after me with your shit-footed son, Father won’t stop. He’ll keep coming. He’d need a reason to stop. He has none. We have no hall, no men to mention, no cows, no herds of horses. Perhaps you are right. We should face him. First, just to make the message clear, I should leave you to hang. He’d get the message. I am not coming with him, nor will I let him slaughter me.”

  He hung his head, shaking it.

  Ingulf grunted. “That’s my plan. That’s the one I prefer. Hang the bastard and ride west. Just disappear. Go as far as we can and keep low. He’ll lose us soon. No scout can find us. Would be as hard as seducing a queen, blind drunk. He cannot pay for the scouts, anyway. The Semnones will go home soon.”

  “And still, there is Maino,” I said stiffly. “And I cannot go home before that business is dealt with.”

  Ingulf threw his hands in the air and hissed with the pain in his leg. Mine was just only healing. “Maino be humped,” he cursed, and then went still. The reason Maino had to die was that he had seen me getting humped, raped, by Iron Eye. The suffering I had endured in the Bear Island …

  I shook my head. “Any man who was there and saw it, will not live to tell about it. That is my oath. To make sure the story is dead. I’ll happily let this shit Bero go, the ring, and the sword, if Father gives up on his quest to kill me, and I can gut Maino.”

  “Maino is your relative,” Bero said miserably. “My son! Your cousin! He and I have made mistakes, and so have you, but it is time to let go of this foolishness.”

  “No,” I said.

  He looked ready to weep. “Would you even fight him fairly?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll murder him. I’ll not let him have a chance in Midgard to gloat over me. He is a wolf warrior, a man blessed by battle rage, if not decency. He deserves no fight, fair or otherwise. I’ll kill him in battle, and there won’t be anything fair about it. He’ll find me at his back, and then he shall weep.”

  Ingulf looked unhappy with that. He had his views about honor and drew lines in places I didn’t yet know.

  “You should have let my father be the king,” I said bitterly. “You should have let me celebrate my victory over the Saxon war-lord and to marry Saxa. Your son stole my honor, tried to steal my woman, and caused her death. Later, he watched as I was raped by Iron Eye. Only he remains, Bero. I’d not try to convince me to forget that. It will always stand between us. Now, be quiet. I am thinking, and, yes, indeed of how far I am willing to go.”

  I nodded at Ingulf, who was riding by the river amidst reeds and flowers, his horse stopping to munch on some delicious fox snout flowers. Ingulf was doing better, and so was I. The riding did no favors to our wounded legs and other bruises and cuts, but for some reason, the trip down the beautiful river and the hunting of plentiful game had given us some needed rest.

  That rest was growing tenuous.

  Father was getting closer.

  He had, apparently, two Semnone scouts. Those scouts seemed to find every village and hall we had visited. They had little trouble to follow us, anyway. We were
just riding down the river. He was a day away, perhaps, or closer. He might abandon his horses and take a boat, or just travel through the night. They had Bero’s wife and Erse, his slave and perhaps wife, but they would not slow down. He was resting as well.

  He knew I would not ride west. He knew of Iron Eye. He knew of what he did.

  I would butcher Maino. It was always in my thoughts. And at the same time, we would have to decide what to do with father.

  Could I kill him? Could I even try? Could he? Would he try? He wasn’t stopping, was he? He was coming. We had loved each other, we had aided each other. I had saved him, he had me, but the crimes and my independence, or rebellion in his head, were too much. He would not be happy to get the sword and the ring back. He wanted more. He wanted Bero. He wanted Maino.

  He wanted me to show him that I was not the Bear, the implacable, jotun-spirited man who would doom Midgard to fire and chaos. There were plenty of rivers flowing into every damned direction, but he was on mine, and I could only wonder how confused he would be.

  I would have to make the move. I knew it, dreaded it, and still, I had to do it.

  Bero cursed and startled me from my thoughts. A branch of evergreen scraped along his face and neck, and he nearly fell from the horse. Another, a particularly thick branch, pushed at him.

  “Please!” Bero howled. “Let me ride by the river. With Ingulf.”

  “Best gag him,” Ingulf called out. “He’s starting to annoy my horse as well. Don’t let him down here, please. The last time I spent time with him, he tried to buy me.”

  “Did he now? Buy Ingulf? You don’t know Ingulf, do you, Uncle? It is getting late, anyway,” I said harshly. “We need to find a camp-spot. Perhaps we find a hill again.”

  “They are still coming,” Ingulf said predictably, and again. “They are, and they won’t stop. They’ll have the campfires burning, and they will make no secret of their whereabouts. They will keep coming until you make up your mind. I’d not like to fight those twenty men. They are the best ones he has.”

  Indeed, Hulderic, Harmod, the surviving Goth warriors were the best of what my father had commanded. Or at least; the most faithful.

  Ingulf was grunting. “There’s a hill not far. See?”

  “No.”

  He chuckled. “We make camp near it, and then, I will go and see where they are this time. I’m bored to be the one who must do all the scouting, but when you ride with a mole, that’s what you get.”

  “I see well enough when I need to kill someone,” I said and spat. “I have trouble seeing far, not near.”

  “Aye, you do,” he laughed. “If we consider this whole trip, that’s exactly why we are here. You only think of tomorrow and not further than that. If only I had my oath, I’d see the point of riding south like a horse-thief with no hall. But, no. You ruined it.”

  “You have no more oath to kill me,” I said. “I smashed the damned skull-cup. You cannot keep the oath, so forget it. It is gone. And we are friends, so—”

  “Friends tell each other what they think, do they not?” he told me. “This trip must change soon. I don’t mind butchering men in battle, and perhaps out of it, if it is a good fight, but at some point, you must have a plan and stick to it. Promise me you will. Let the chaos end, and we settle in.”

  I nodded. “I promise. At some point, I will no longer find trouble. But not yet. I’ll butcher Maino, and then, we see Bero weep,” I said. “Then, hall, land, and a good lord to serve. Perhaps one day, we shall be the ones they serve.”

  Ingulf cursed. “I said we settle down. Stop plotting on how to climb over men. It makes my skin itch. I miss honor, fame, and a proper, fair fight. You should give Maino one.”

  “Maroboodus,” Bero said with a pleading voice. “I lost a wife, and a mother. I have lost too much, Maroboodus. I would be with my new wife. And son. At least give him a fair fight.”

  “Maybe I’ll give him one in Valholl, one day,” I said. “But I doubt they let him in. Your wives will be there, and both shall serve another man. They’ll sit on a hero’s lap and give them mead, and you and Maino shall sit in gray fogs of Helheim, in a land of the forgotten, sick, and old. Spin your tales there, Bero, Uncle. No more man twisted in body and soul do I know. I won’t ride much further, if you must know.”

  Bero shook his head. “If you touch him, if you kill me, you will not be welcome anywhere. They will hear a tale of a man so obsessed with vengeance, no honest man will accept you in their hall.”

  “Then, I’ll find a dishonest one,” I snarled.

  Ingulf shook his head, unhappy. “We settled down in honorable service, Maroboodus. I agree. Give Maino a fair fight.”

  “You should have granted me such honor, Bero, but didn’t seem to think that is important when your son set out to mock me in the Shade Hall,” I told him. “I got no fair fight, when Magni the Saxon, the rot in a dog’s arse, and you deny me honor.”

  Bero was shaking his head, looking away, as if even unwilling to hear about it. He had slithered his way after me to gain the ring, the Draupnir’s Spawn, first selling his blood to the Saxons, then, due to Skallagrim’s madness, to our ancient relative, the Boat Lord.

  All his plans had failed.

  After, I had ruined his relations to the Semnones and then ruined his marriage night with the Cherusci princess, and now, he was begging for his shit of a son, a shit himself.

  “I can forgive you,” he whispered. “You should too.”

  “No. So might a rabbit speak when a wolf holds it in his jaws. Coward.”

  “I hope Hulderic will kill you,” Bero said.

  I saw Ingulf shaking his head again, and he knew well what would happen.

  I turned my beast around and rode next to Bero. Then, I backhanded my uncle so hard, he yelped and cried. I grasped his face savagely so he wouldn’t fall. “Don’t cheer for him. You were screaming, Uncle, for joy when Finnr’s caught fire, and Father was inside. Remember?”

  He breathed hard, and I let go of his thin face and wiped my fingers in his tunic.

  He spoke, spitting blood. “I have not forgotten. But I can forgive, because you are not blameless for the death of my wife and boys. None of us are guiltless. Woden knows we should move on. The sword and the ring, give them to him, and—”

  I showed him the Draupnir’s Spawn, and the great spatha, the sword Head Taker. “Mine. I shall not spare your son,” I said simply. “Make others.”

  “You shit,” Bero wept. “You weasel.”

  “He looks like a weasel,” Ingulf said. “I prefer the mole. The weasel gets men killed.”

  “Bear,” Bero said softly. “Bear does that. He has no plans other than to cause deaths, and make war.”

  “Maybe we should take Erse,” I said. “I could take Erse from him, and he will send me Maino instead and give me an oath to go to Helheim and leave us be.”

  Ingulf snorted. “Maroboodus will take Erse. He’ll ride in and steals her away. Or, perhaps, he’ll ask me to do it. That’s it. You will ask me. I’ll get killed trying to steal a woman. I bet she is pregnant, and everyone will blame me. I’ll be called a rapist.”

  “We shall do it together,” I told him. “Nay. We need help. We will need men to change our luck.”

  “There are no men!” Bero yelled.

  “We will find men,” I said simply. “It’s been a week, and we are far from the lands of the Semnones. We will find men, Uncle, and they will help us. We do, after all, have a way to pay them with.”

  He laughed. “Will you pay them with compliments? While the Semnones use foreign coins to trade, these people might not. We have no cows, nothing—”

  “We’ll pay them with father’s horses,” I said.

  They looked at me with serious faces.

  “You mean, you will attack them,” he said simply. “What if these bandits you don’t have, and you hope to find, will simply kill you as well?”

  “Then, we’ll be dead,” I said. “But I’m too lucky to die
to a bandit.”

  Ingulf laughed aloud and startled a pair of swans into a headlong flight, their wings flapping and water dripping as they fled away.

  “I am,” I said. “Lok loves me. We shall succeed.”

  Bero fumed and went silent and spat. “I need to relieve myself.”

  I turned away and dragged his horse after me. “You may piss on your horse, Uncle. Piss, shit, I care not. After all, didn’t I live in shit and piss for a winter, thanks to you? You’ll scrub the horse, of course.”

  “The smell, Maroboodus,” Ingulf said miserably. “I don’t want to dunk him in the river again. You’ll feed him if he pisses himself. I won’t—”

  “Fine. But I am lucky. If I am the Bear, the gods need their corpses, and they are due some. We’ll give it a few more days.”

  We didn’t need that long.

  Just before Sunna set, Woden guided us to a great man. And if I had asked for a dishonest one, I got my wish. Lok smiled.

  CHAPTER 2

  The hill Ingulf had mentioned rose high above us, thick with firs. We saw a wide field ahead, and a boat on the shore.

  Then, we smelled smoke.

  There was also a smell of roasting meat.

  Ingulf rode ahead. “I wonder if they will be hospitable. It must be a hall of some kind. You think it is cow they are roasting? Or perhaps horse?”

  “I care not,” I said, pulling Bero along. “As long as they share some.”

  It wasn’t cow, or horse.

  We followed Ingulf and rode into a field set by the great river. My horse nearly crashed into Ingulf’s, who had a hand on his sword’s hilt and looked like a wolf dragged out its hole, facing spears. “Ware,” he hissed. “They have burned a hall. The flesh? We don’t want any of it. They are still here.”