Blood Of Ravens

Chapter 1: The Returning Dead

The longship limped into the fjord like a wounded animal dragging itself toward a familiar den. Its sail hung in tatters, the once-proud raven standard reduced to shreds of black cloth that snapped weakly in the November wind. Of the forty oars that had bitten the grey waters when they departed Rogaland eight months ago, only eleven still moved, pulling in ragged unison against the current.

Gunnar Ironhand sat in the stern, wrapped in a cloak of salt-stiffened wool, and watched the familiar cliffs rise around him like the walls of a grave. His right arm ended at the wrist in a knot of scar tissue, bound in linen that had once been white and was now the color of old rust. The stump throbbed with each beat of his heart, a dull metronome counting out the rhythm of his diminished life.

He had been a large man once. Not tall — his father had been short and thick as an oak stump, and Gunnar had inherited that build — but broad across the shoulders and heavy through the chest, with forearms that could bend iron bars. That was before Northumbria. Before the ambush at the river crossing where the Saxons had come screaming out of the tree line with their long axes and their hatred of Northmen. Before the blade that had taken his hand and most of his fighting spirit with it.

Now he was something less. He could feel it in the way his remaining men looked at him — not with the old fierce loyalty, but with a kind of embarrassed pity that was worse than contempt.

"There," said Ketil from beside him, pointing with a thin finger toward the settlement that was resolving out of the grey afternoon. "That is your home?"

Gunnar looked at the thrall. Ketil was a Frankish monk they had captured during a raid on a monastery near the coast of Frisia, back when the campaign still held promise. He was a small man with a tonsured head that had since grown out into an unruly crown of brown hair, and dark eyes that missed nothing. He spoke the Norse tongue with a strange lilting accent, but he spoke it well — one of four languages he claimed to command, along with Latin, Frankish, and the Saxon tongue.

"That is Avaldsnes," Gunnar said. "The seat of Jarl Thorvald."

"And your home," Ketil repeated.

Gunnar did not answer. He was watching the smoke rise from the great hall, the longhouses clustered around it like piglets around a sow. He could see figures moving on the shore — women carrying baskets, children chasing dogs, the ordinary business of a settlement that had not been ravaged by war. It looked exactly as he had left it. That sameness felt like an insult.

"I see many ships in the harbor," Ketil observed. "More than I would expect for a settlement this size."

Gunnar saw them too. At least a dozen longships were beached on the strand or anchored in the shallows, their dragon prows catching the last of the daylight. That meant a gathering — perhaps a feast, perhaps a thing. His jaw tightened.

"Row," he told his men. His voice was hoarse from weeks of disuse. "Take us in."

The eleven oars dipped and pulled. The ship groaned forward.

They beached in the shallows as the sun dropped behind the western ridge, painting the sky in bands of copper and ash. Gunnar climbed over the gunwale and dropped into water that reached his knees, gasping at the cold that bit through his boots and leggings. He waded ashore with Ketil close behind him.

The others followed — eleven men where there had been forty. Bjorn the Red, who had lost an eye to a Saxon arrow. Hakon Slim, who walked with a limp from a wound that had never properly healed. Old Ulf, who had been ancient when they departed and now looked like something dug up from a burial mound. The rest were young men, boys really, who had signed on for glory and found only mud and blood and the long miserable voyage home.

A crowd was gathering on the beach. Gunnar recognized faces — Thorstein the smith, Dalla the fish-wife, old Gerd who had been ancient when Gunnar was a boy. They stared at him and his ragged crew with expressions that cycled through surprise, confusion, and something that looked disturbingly like fear.

"Gunnar?" Thorstein stepped forward, his broad face creased with disbelief. "Gunnar Ironhand? We were told—" He stopped himself.

"Told what?" Gunnar asked.

Thorstein glanced at the others, then back at Gunnar. His eyes dropped to the bandaged stump where Gunnar's right hand had been. "We were told you were dead. That you fell in Northumbria."

"Who told you that?"

Thorstein opened his mouth, closed it, then looked toward the great hall. The sound of music and laughter drifted down the slope — the sounds of a feast in full swing.

"Your brother," Thorstein said quietly. "Eirik brought word three months ago. He said he had it from traders who witnessed the battle."

Gunnar felt something cold settle in his chest, colder than the fjord water still dripping from his clothes. Eirik. His younger brother, who had stayed behind to mind the farm and the family's affairs while Gunnar sailed for glory. Eirik, who had always been the clever one, the one with the smooth tongue and the calculating eyes.

"And Sigrid?" Gunnar asked. His voice came out flat, stripped of emotion. "What of my betrothed?"

Thorstein's face told him everything before the words came. "She married Eirik. A month past. The jarl himself performed the ceremony."

The cold in Gunnar's chest spread outward, into his limbs, into his bones. He stood on the beach with the water lapping at his heels and the wind cutting through his ruined cloak, and he felt the last warmth drain out of him.

Ketil touched his elbow. "Master," the monk said softly. "What will you do?"

Gunnar looked up the slope toward the great hall. Light spilled from the open doors, golden and warm, and the sound of voices raised in song carried on the evening air. His brother was in there. His woman was in there. Everything that had been his was in there.

"I am going to walk into that hall," Gunnar said, "and I am going to look my brother in the eye."

He started up the slope. His men fell in behind him, a ragged column of the wounded and the weary. The crowd on the beach parted before them, and whispers followed in their wake like the hissing of a tide.

The great hall of Jarl Thorvald was a massive timber structure, its roof ridge crowned with carved dragon heads that snarled at the sky. Torchlight blazed from iron brackets along the walls, and the doors stood open to the night, releasing waves of heat and noise and the rich smell of roasting meat.

Gunnar paused at the threshold. Inside, he could see the long tables lined with warriors and their women, the jarl's high seat on its raised platform at the far end, the fire pit running down the center of the hall with its bed of glowing coals. Servants moved between the tables bearing platters of food and pitchers of ale. Dogs fought over scraps beneath the benches.

And there, at the high table beside the jarl, sat Eirik.

Gunnar's brother had changed in the eight months since they had last seen each other. He had grown a beard — a thick, well-groomed thing that made him look older and more commanding. He wore a fine tunic of blue wool trimmed with silver thread, and arm rings of gold gleamed on his wrists. He was leaning back in his chair with a horn of ale in his hand, laughing at something the jarl had said.

Beside him sat Sigrid.

She was as Gunnar remembered her — tall and fair, with hair the color of ripe wheat braided and coiled atop her head. She wore a dress of green wool fastened at the shoulders with oval brooches of bronze, and a necklace of amber beads lay against her throat. She was not laughing. She sat straight-backed and still, her hands folded in her lap, her face composed into an expression of careful neutrality.

Gunnar stepped into the hall.

The noise died in stages, like a fire being smothered. First the men nearest the door fell silent, then the silence spread inward, table by table, until the only sound was the crackle of the fire and the whining of a dog somewhere in the shadows.

Every eye in the hall turned toward the door.

Gunnar walked forward. His boots left wet prints on the packed-earth floor. His cloak dripped. His stump throbbed. He kept his eyes fixed on the high table, on his brother's face, and he watched the color drain from it like ale poured from a horn.

"Brother," Gunnar said. His voice carried in the silence. "I hear you have been telling people I am dead."

Eirik stared at him. For a long moment, no one in the hall moved or spoke. Then Eirik set down his ale horn, slowly and deliberately, and rose to his feet.

"Gunnar," he said. His voice was steady, but Gunnar could see the rapid pulse beating in his throat. "This is — we thought — the traders said—"

"The traders lied," Gunnar said. "Or you did. I am here. I am alive."

He looked at Sigrid. She was staring at him with an expression he could not read — shock, certainly, but something else beneath it. Her eyes dropped to his missing hand, and her lips parted slightly, but she said nothing.

Jarl Thorvald leaned forward in his high seat. He was an old man, thick-bodied and grey-bearded, with a face like weathered granite. He had ruled Rogaland for thirty years, and his word was law in these parts.

"Gunnar, son of Ragnvald," the jarl said. "We mourned you. Rites were spoken. Your share of the family lands was given to your brother as inheritance." He paused, studying Gunnar with shrewd eyes. "You say you live. I can see that you do. But what happened in Northumbria? Where are your men? Where is the plunder you promised?"

Gunnar felt the weight of every gaze in the hall. "We were ambushed," he said. "The Saxons were waiting for us at a river crossing. They had more men than we expected. We fought. Many fell. I lost my hand in the fighting. We retreated to the ships and sailed home."

"Retreated," Eirik repeated. He had recovered his composure now, and his voice carried a note of something sharp and deliberate. "You mean you ran."

A murmur rippled through the hall.

"I mean we retreated," Gunnar said, turning to face his brother. "When the battle was lost and half my crew lay dead. I brought the survivors home. That is not cowardice."

"Is it not?" Eirik stepped around the table and walked toward Gunnar, stopping a few paces away. He was taller than Gunnar — he had their mother's height — and he used that advantage now, looking down at his older brother with an expression of sorrowful disappointment that Gunnar recognized as entirely manufactured. "You sailed with forty men. How many did you bring back?"

"Eleven."

"Eleven." Eirik turned to address the hall. "Eleven men out of forty. No plunder. No glory. And our brother returns to us missing his sword hand." He shook his head. "The Gunnar Ironhand I knew would have died before he ran from a fight. I wonder if this is truly my brother at all, or some lesser man wearing his face."

The murmur in the hall grew louder. Gunnar could feel the mood shifting, could feel the sympathy that had greeted his arrival curdling into something harder and more dangerous. These were warriors, men who lived by the sword and measured worth in blood and plunder. A leader who returned from a raid with nothing but wounds and dead men was not a hero. He was a failure.

"I am Gunnar, son of Ragnvald," he said, keeping his voice level. "I am the eldest son. The lands are mine by right. The betrothal to Sigrid was arranged by our father before his death. These things do not change because my brother chose to believe convenient lies."

"Convenient?" Eirik's eyes narrowed. "You accuse me of falsehood?"

"I accuse you of nothing. I state what is true. I am alive. I am here. I claim what is mine."

The hall erupted into argument. Men shouted from the benches, some supporting Gunnar, others backing Eirik. Fists pounded on tables. Dogs barked. Through it all, Jarl Thorvald sat in his high seat and watched with the patient expression of a man who had seen many disputes and knew that the truth usually revealed itself in the chaos.

Finally, the jarl raised his hand. Silence fell.

"This is a matter for the assembly," Thorvald said. "Both men have claims. Both will speak. The free men of Rogaland will decide." He looked at Gunnar. "You will have your hearing, Gunnar. Tomorrow, at the thing. Until then, you are a guest in my hall. Eat. Rest. You look as though you need both."

Gunnar nodded stiffly. He turned away from his brother and walked toward the lower tables, where his surviving crew had already found places on the benches. Ketil followed him like a shadow.

As he sat down, a servant placed a bowl of stew and a hunk of bread before him. Gunnar stared at the food without appetite. Across the hall, he could feel Eirik's gaze on him, sharp as a blade.

"Your brother," Ketil said quietly, settling onto the bench beside him. "He is not pleased to see you."

"No," Gunnar said. "He is not."

"He has had three months to build his position. To make alliances. To win the jarl's favor." Ketil's dark eyes were thoughtful. "You have eleven wounded men and a missing hand. The assembly tomorrow will not go well for you."

Gunnar picked up the bread and tore it with his teeth. "I know," he said.

"Then what is your plan?"

Gunnar chewed and swallowed. The bread was fresh and good, better than anything he had eaten in months, but it tasted like ashes in his mouth.

"I don't have one," he admitted.

Ketil sighed — the long-suffering sigh of a man who had been captured, enslaved, dragged across the sea, and was now watching his master march blindly into another disaster.

"Then perhaps," the monk said, "we should make one."