The Falcons of Fire and Ice - By Karen Maitland Page 0,104
remember?’
He stares at me, evidently puzzled by such a question. ‘How should I remember that … ? No, wait, it must have been a Friday, for though we’d lost a day’s fishing on account of the storm, we did no fishing the next day either, for no fishing boat’ll put to sea on a Friday. That’s how we came to be ashore when the corpses washed up and could carry them up from the beach, else we’d all have been back at sea … Why, what does it matter what day it was?’
‘Because if a corpse is to be raised using the black arts, it must be on Friday night before Saturday dawns.’
Ari swallows hard. His voice is trembling a little. ‘You think he was the man I saw drowned and someone raised his corpse? But how?’
‘There are many ways to accomplish that. But if the corpse is newly dead, the sorcerer writes the Lord’s Prayer on a parchment using the feather of a water rail for a quill and his own blood for ink and he must carve the troll runes upon a stick. Then he must lay the stick on the corpse, rolling it as he reads the prayer he has written. Gradually, the body will stir, but before it gains its strength, the sorcerer must ask the corpse his name. If the corpse regains his strength before the question is asked or answered, then the sorcerer will never be able to master it and the draugr will kill him.
‘The draugr’s nostrils and mouth will bubble with grave-froth and this the sorcerer must lick off with his own tongue and place a drop of his own blood in the corpse’s mouth. Then great strength will come upon the draugr and he will attack the sorcerer and wrestle with him. If the sorcerer wins, the draugr must do his every bidding, but if the draugr wins, he will drag the sorcerer back down into death with him. It is an extremely brave or an extraordinarily bitter man who would risk raising the corpse of an adult man like this one, who would have enormous power. Most sorcerers fear to raise anyone except children whose strength they can master. Whoever raised the corpse of the drowned fisherman must have had a good reason for needing a grown man to do his bidding.’
‘Who?’ Ari asks. ‘Who would do such an evil thing?’
I am certain I know, but I will not tell the boy. It is the worst of crimes to poison the young with hatred.
Ari draws up his knees and clasps his arms tightly around them, staring into the flames of my cooking fire. ‘I heard my grandfather speak of a nightstalker that was sent by a jealous neighbour to terrorize a blacksmith and his family. He arrived one night as a stranger seeking shelter. They offered him their hospitality for they didn’t know what he was. But soon he made their lives a torment. He turned their winter stores of smoked meat rancid and the dried fish rotten. He caused every iron tool the blacksmith fashioned to crack, and every horseshoe he made to lame the horse it was nailed to until the whole neighbourhood was furious with the blacksmith and refused to bring their horses to him. My grandfather said the nightstalker kept the whole family constantly awake with his shrieking and singing of drunken songs, but he wouldn’t leave. Then, when they finally realized what he was, the blacksmith and his brothers circled him with sharp knives so he couldn’t escape, then they struck off his head with a great axe and burned the body.’
‘I know that the draugr in this cave has been conjured to do far worse than break tools or spoil stores. It is not animals he has been sent to destroy, Ari, but men.’
It pains me to frighten the lad, but I must make him understand why I am about to ask him to undertake a task for me that will place him in such danger.
Ari moans and brings his fists up over his head. ‘It’s all my fault. I should have let him die on the track. The Danes were right to attack him. We must kill him now, before he regains his strength. Cut off his head and burn the body, like my grandfather said, that’s the only way to destroy him.’
Ari struggles to his feet and pulls the knife from his belt.
‘No, Ari!’ I shout. ‘No, don’t hurt him. He must live.’