Page 54 of Edge of the Wild

Erik glanced out across it. “A very good question.”

“Uncle.” Leif reached down toward the man’s throat – and pulled out a strand of ivory teeth on an iron chain. “Look at this. And his hair.” Thick lines of bare scalp showed where patterns had been shaved into the sides of his head.

“Úlfheðnar,” Erik said, sounding surprised.

The face was mottled dark with bruises and frostbite, the features swollen and distorted from being in the water.

“One of Ragnar’s party from the feast?” Oliver asked.

“They would have traveled back this way,” Birger said. “But I confess that I can’t recognize him, not with any certainty.”

Erik stood, flicking ice crystals off his fingers. His gaze darted across the lake, skirted toward the forest. “It could have been some sort of argument between them.”

“Or the same bastards that attacked Silfr Hall last night attacked them,” Leif said.

“Aye. I want a search organized.” He toed at the dead man. “Who’s to say if Ragnar even made it home?”

~*~

Oliver pulled his cloak more tightly around himself and glanced up through a screen of interlacing pine limbs to seek out the sun. Just past midday; they hadn’t lostmuchtime. It was colder beneath the cover of the trees, but the forest was full of guards and lords alike, calling back and forth to one another, so he didn’t feel as frightened as he might have. He walked with Leif on one side, Magnus on the other.

“If it was the ol’ bear-shirts last night, then it seems like they’d be the likeliest culprits now,” Magnus reasoned. “I can’t figure out why they’d put him in the drink, though.”

“Maybe they didn’t. Maybe he crawled there, while he was dying,” Oliver said. “And then something” – he shuddered – “pulled him in.”

“Something like what?”

“Well, we’ve got crocodiles in the South.”

“Aye, those great lizard beasts with all the teeth? I’ve seen drawings in books,” Magnus said. “But they wouldn’t be able to stand the cold up here, would they?”

“No. Definitely not. Maybe the North has – I dunno, giant killer otters or something.”

Magnus laughed. There was a true gift in being able to laugh in times like these, Oliver thought. “No, no, none of that. Bear could have done it, maybe. The killing and the dragging.”

Leif hummed an unconvinced note.

Oliver alternated between scanning the ground and scanning the tree limbs above them. He knew for a fact that there were big cats in these parts, smaller than the mountain lions of home, but spotted, with thicker coats, and meaner temperaments.

Snow lay in drifts against the tree trunks, all the vegetation died back and mashed down beneath a layer of white for the winter. The whole forest looked crystallized, like a thing preserved: beautiful but lifeless.

Thinking like that was what got you set upon by predators.

Ahead, a voice shouted, “I’ve found something!”

They broke into a jog, as did the other search groups, everyone converging on a small clearing where one of Askr’s men was hailing them.

It had snowed the last two nights, but the branches overhead had offered a bit of shelter. The deep gouges in the snow, the ones that had gone down to the deep red clay beneath, had been only partially filled, so red streaks like scars marked a place where a man had fought, and struggled…and died. The corpse sat with its back to a tree trunk, head slumped down on his chest, snow frosting his pale, shaved and braided hair. His torso was pierced with five arrows, the shafts of some black wood, the fletching of red and white feathers. Sunlight gleamed on the ivory of the teeth – human molars and animal fangs – he wore around his throat.

Wordless, jaw clenched, Erik stepped forward, gripped the body by the hair, and lifted his hair.

For a moment, Oliver’s pulse leaped – but the corpse did not belong to Ragnar.

Erik let the head drop and turned to glance across all their faces. “Beserkirs,” he said. “It must be. That was them last night. These are their arrows.” He flicked the end of one, lip curled in derision. “The shaman costumes are new, though.”

“This one belongs to your cousin, doesn’t he?” Askr said. “I think I recognize him.”

“Gods knows if Ragnar is still alive,” Erik said.

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