Ragnvald advanced on the draugr, sword in front of him. As he drew closer, he could see that it carried a knife in one hand, and an ax in the other. It moved slowly, yet with a terrible purpose, as though it did not even see Ragnvald and Oddi. Ragnvald approached close enough that he could touch it with his sword, and smell its terrible stench. It made small, animal snuffling noises, and had the heat of a man. It still seemed unseeing.
Ragnvald put his sword to the draugr’s neck—would it do anything if he cut the throat? Or would it only continue? Its journey had not been stopped by its first death. Fear stayed Ragnvald’s hand.
The wight finally turned its head and regarded Ragnvald with bloodshot eyes. It raised the arm with the knife and hurled it. Ragnvald ducked. The blade parted the fabric of his shirtsleeve.
Ragnvald tried to summon from within himself the anger of battle, the single-minded focus that would banish nerves and give him the strength to kill this thing, but found only cold, and fear. Fear that this was not his fight, that he should not be here, that this was folly and he was no hero out of legend.
He stood and looked at it again, into unseeing eyes. The draugr’s forehead was nearly split in half by the ax blow that had killed it. Black blood stained its cheeks. It pawed at its face, as if trying to wipe the marks away. Ragnvald’s stomach twisted when he saw the white of skull through the layers of clotted blood and leaves. He knew he should not be moving this slowly—he should fight, kill, do something—yet he paused and looked at it more carefully, as it stood there. Its skin bore the marks of a hasty washing—someone living had cared for this creature, and recently. The sister.
With that same ponderous slowness with which it walked, it raised its ax. Ragnvald could easily dodge the blow, yet fear and a strange fascination rooted him where he was until the blade whistled near him. The ax glanced off a rock. The wight made no sound beyond its footfalls. It swung arm and ax as if they were both stone, insensible to pain.
A blow from its fist caught Ragnvald on the shoulder, and he stumbled back. It swung again, and this time Ragnvald raised his sword to block the blow. Its movement did not slow. Instead it drove the flesh of its forearm onto the blade. Now Ragnvald moved quickly, recoiling in horror. The draugr did not feel pain; it could grab him, could use him to feed its terrible hunger. But it did not grasp when it touched him. It stared down at him, tilting its head like a raven about to rend carrion.
Ragnvald froze. It might not be hungry, but it could still kill him with its terrible strength. It could not feel Ragnvald’s sword when it swung its arms—how could Ragnvald kill it?
The grass crunched behind Ragnvald—Oddi coming forward to take up Ragnvald’s fight if he fell. He could not let Oddi die in his place. He found his feet again, but stayed in a low crouch. He clenched his sword in his hand, hard, as Olaf had warned against when he had trained him. Hold the sword too tightly and it could be knocked from his grasp. The grip must be gentle and strong.
The wight was still above him, swaying where it stood. Ragnvald raised his sword and drove it up into the creature’s throat.
It fell just as a man would, hands scrabbling at the weapon, although unlike a man, it closed its hands around the sword, cutting into its palms, sending blood showering down on Ragnvald. Ragnvald tried to avoid it, for the blood of a draugr was cold bile, cursed. It sprayed everywhere, from the creature’s mouth, the wound at its throat, its hands. Blood covered Ragnvald’s face, and his hands where they were stuck with fear and shock to the hilt of his sword. The draugr’s limbs shuddered one last time, and Ragnvald scrambled out of the way so it would not fall on top of him.
Ragnvald breathed heavily for a moment, his hands shaking, and then stood up. His legs could hardly hold him. He felt weak, as though he was bleeding from some great wound. He knew this sensation, though; it was when the touch of Odin, the battle madness that any warrior must partake in, retreated, leaving mere humanity behind. Ragnvald knelt next to the body. A great warrior would probably have spent less time on his rear, he thought sourly. The half-healed cut in his thigh ached.
He had no fear of contagion now; indeed, all his fear had drained away, leaving only weariness behind. He began the bloody work of cutting the head from the body, severing tendon and muscle. He grew tired halfway through the neck bone, sick of the gore, and too weak to do it neatly, so Oddi came and helped him with the last cuts.
“I will tell my father of your bravery,” Oddi said, a hint of awe in his voice.
“You would have done it too,” said Ragnvald. The wight’s blood had started to become tacky on his skin. Perhaps Rathi’s thralls would heat some water for him, feed him spiced wine, and wash him clean. Perhaps a comely thrall would warm his bed tonight. Ragnvald tried to feel excitement at that idea, but he was too slicked with blood and his own fear-sweat to imagine touching a woman now.
“No,” said Oddi. “I would not. I do not seek fame.” He looked at Ragnvald as though he expected a response, perhaps for Ragnvald to recoil in horror at his unmanliness. Ragnvald did not feel like judging any man tonight. He was no braver than Oddi. This wight was not so different than he had been, when Solvi slashed his face and sent him to die. The fisherman had called him a draugr.
*
When Ragnvald and Oddi returned to the hall, so many lamps were lit, it looked like golden day within. Ragnvald placed the head at Hakon’s feet, and tried to keep at bay the hysterical laughter that wanted to bubble up. He could think of nothing so much as the farm cats back at Ardal, laying their tributes of mice and sparrows before Vigdis, their queen.
While Oddi told Hakon what Ragnvald had done, one of Rathi’s most beautiful thralls washed the blood from Ragnvald’s hands. “We must still burn the corpse in the morning,” said Ragnvald, without looking up from this thrall’s face. Hakon gave him a flagon of wine to share with Oddi and told the thrall girl to pour it for them.
“Should I toast you?” Oddi asked, as Ragnvald drained his first cup in one draught, and held it out for the girl to refill. She was lovely, with a cap of dark hair, cut short as a thrall’s should be, yet Ragnvald looked on her and thought of the draugr’s sister, in hiding, of the draugr itself, its black blood wetting Ragnvald’s hands and face. He wanted to vomit up the wine he had just swallowed.
“I see not,” said Oddi, when Ragnvald did not answer. He drained his glass as well. The wine did not taste like much, sour and clay-flavored from its long storage, but after a few glasses, Ragnvald started to feel it in his head, and the horror of the night’s work receded somewhat. He had killed before, but this felt different. That had been in an ambush, silent in the night, or even better, surrounded by all of Solvi’s men, yelling and screaming to frighten monks who ran away.
“What do you think it felt like, to be half dead like that?” Ragnvald asked.