The Rule

‘Look at this, stupid, stupid …’

It was only when his face was barely inches from the edge of the bank that Gunnarr for the first time felt a stab of unease. He glanced backwards. Kelda was watching him from the bushes, her face frozen with anticipation. He shook away his thoughts and went on. Pushing with his toes, he eased himself forward until the grass parted from his vision and the bright water flashed up at him from below. His eyes swallowed in the scene, and his breath died upon his lips.

A man was standing below him at the edge of the water. He was facing the opposite direction, hands on his hips, as if deep in thought. Gunnarr was so close that he could see grains of dirt in the man’s scalp where his hair thinned at the back of his head. Though he was clad in a brown woollen tunic, the man’s shoulders were shaking as if through cold, and at intervals he would place his hands into his hair and clutch at it as if intending to pull it free.

It was not to him that Gunnarr’s eyes were drawn, though. Instead, he found himself looking in the same direction that the man was staring. There his gaze fell upon the second man, the high-voiced one, and the sight caused Gunnarr’s hands to clench involuntarily around fistfuls of grass.

The second man was nearer to being a boy. He could not have been much older than Gunnarr. He was lying on his back in a shallow point in the middle of the stream, naked, his pale skin very bright amidst the greyness of the river rocks. He could almost have been bathing, but the rushing water was surging against the crown of his head and pouring over into his open eyes and mouth, and the boy was not in the least bit conscious of it.

A splash of movement sounded from below, and Gunnarr almost jolted with shock as the man began to stride across to where the boy lay. For once the man’s lips had fallen silent, and the sound of the water sloshing around his feet was the only noise to mask that of Gunnarr’s heartbeat. The man came to stand over the boy’s body and stooped to peer down at it, like a hunter studying a paw print. He gazed at the corpse for a long while, his lips pursed questioningly, and then Gunnarr realised that a knife was in the man’s hand. With a sudden movement, he dropped to a knee in the water and began jerking his arm back and forth in a swift cutting motion.

The sight caused Gunnarr to lock rigid with shock. He clamped shut his jaw and tried to avert his eyes. And as soon as he did, he knew immediately that he had been found.

He must have made a sound. Some rustle of grass, or snap of a twig. With dread, he rolled his eyes back towards the scene, and found the man crouched frozen over the body, his head up and alert and his eyes roving slowly across the river bank directly below where Gunnarr lay. Gunnarr could see the man’s face for the first time. It was not one he recognised. It was the kind of drained, hollow face that displayed every bone, every muscle that moved beneath the skin. His complexion was the colour of week-old bruises, and his thin brown hair hung so closely to his face that his ears protruded through it. His eyes were creeping steadily upwards, seeking someone out. For a heartbeat Gunnarr was trapped with indecision. Then his muscles twitched and came alive again, and with a burst of sound he found himself bolting from his hiding place and scrambling back towards the bushes.

He found Kelda blocking his path, waiting for him, her face barely inches from his own.

‘Kelda, go back,’ he urged.

For a moment he saw a flicker of confusion pass across her face, the shadow of an uncertain smile giving way to a crease of concern.

Footsteps started splashing through the water down below.

‘Run back!’ he told her again, his voice almost a shout this time, and finally her eyes flicked past him and back again and she seemed to understand.

She clasped his hand. ‘Come on!’

But Gunnarr hesitated. The ground around them shook as a weight leapt against the bank beneath their feet. Kelda screamed and skittered backwards. She grabbed for Gunnarr’s arm again, but he shook free of her grasp and fixed his eyes on the edge of the bank.

With a thud, a hand snapped up over the side and clutched hold of the grass. It was trembling with effort, the nails clawing down into the soft earth. With a crack of broken branches, Kelda was gone, vanished into the undergrowth, but Gunnarr realised that he was not going to follow. Thoughts, or memories, were racing through his mind so fast that he did not know what they were, but he knew that he had to stay. He rose to his feet and stepped forward towards the river.

The man was halfway through hauling himself up over the bank, the top of his head cresting the side, but he must have heard Gunnarr’s movement and feared an attack raining down from above while he was helpless, for his hands pushed free of the bank and he crashed back down into the water.

Slowly, Gunnarr continued forward. As he leaned out cautiously over the side he found the man staring up at him from below, his body tensed, ready to spring forward or dart backwards at the slightest flinch. They studied each other’s eyes for a moment, and then the man’s features stretched into a twitching grin.

‘Greetings, little friend. What are you doing up there?’ His voice was speaking different words to his eyes.

Gunnarr placed a hand on the ground and came warily down the slope to the stream floor. The man watched every step, twisting his neck to follow the movement. Behind him, the body still lay in the water like a log. Gunnarr’s eyes must have flicked towards it, for the man also glanced quickly around at the sight, and then turned back to Gunnarr with a short awkward laugh.

‘I know you, I think,’ the man said, as Gunnarr reached the fine shale gravel that bordered the stream. ‘You’re an Egilsson.’

‘Folkvarr was my father,’ Gunnarr corrected instinctively, with such conviction that the man shrank his chin into his neck and gave a smirk.

‘That’s right, Folkvarr’s lad. Too fair to be Egil’s own. What are you doing up here, boy?’

Gunnarr glanced again at the pale figure lying in the water. Blood was bubbling out of a dark vent in his chest and rinsing down his thighs in long brown streaks. Gunnarr gathered his breath. ‘You should not have done that.’

The man glanced around at the body again and then eyed Gunnarr with a sideways look. ‘How long were you up there?’

Gunnarr offered no reply, so the man continued.

‘He’s my son, of sorts. I’ve fostered him as Egil has you, kept him fed when I’ve had scarcely enough for my own. He liked coming up here with me.’ He stopped there, as if that were explanation enough, and pressed a positive smile through closed lips.

‘You should not have done it,’ Gunnarr repeated.

Like water, the smile drained from the man’s face. His eyes hardened. ‘And who says so?’

Gunnarr answered without hesitation. ‘The rule.’

The man spat. ‘Egil’s rule.’ He seemed to be finished, and then the next words erupted as a shout. ‘And what’s that got to do with me? I never supported his claim. He was a man just like me once.’

Gunnarr shifted his weight. The temper had revealed itself, and now the man seemed to loom over Gunnarr, darkening like gathering storm clouds. The bloodied knife had appeared in his hand, apparently plucked from the air.

‘What were you doing to him?’ Gunnarr asked.

The man stared at Gunnarr for a moment and then turned over the knife in his hand, speaking more softly. ‘Opening his chest to the sky so that his spirit might escape, like the old ways for the dead. The old ways that all men of Helvik used to follow,’ he added in a louder voice. ‘Your father’s rule is taking that away from us as well.’

‘He’s not my fa—’ Gunnarr began, but that was all that he had time to say.

In a flash of movement the man sprang forward and snatched hold of Gunnarr’s arm. Gunnarr heard himself yelp and flailed out with his free fist, battering muscle, but the man dropped the knife and latched onto that arm as well. The wiry strength of his grip lifted Gunnarr from his feet, sapping his power away. The man’s face was ablaze with madness. His fingers drove so deep into Gunnarr’s arms that it felt like they were bending his bones. Agonised, Gunnarr twisted violently in the air, wriggling half loose, and from the side of his vision saw the stream rushing up to meet him. He hit the icy water with a clunk, and pain jarred through his bones as his hip came down upon a jutting rock.

The pain caused him to croak and convulse. His body sought to double over into a ball, but the man was kneeling on top of him, snarling in the thrashing spray as he sought to lock Gunnarr’s arms down against his sides. Gunnarr screamed and kicked out at the man’s groin, but he could generate no force. His strength was leaving him, his heart hammering against his ribs. He rolled onto his side, turbid water sloshing up to rush down his throat, and there on the river bank he saw the dead boy’s clothes lying in a ragged heap across the stones. A cry came unbidden to his lips.

‘Help!’

A hand clubbed down against his nose and mouth, trying to smother his cries, but Gunnarr twisted his neck free again.

‘Help me!’ His words came out high-pitched and shrieking, crying out to anyone that could hear. His throat felt like it was tearing. With a shout of his own, the man kicked Gunnarr hard in the ribs. The last of his air was driven from his lungs, and his cries turned into an empty gasp.

From somewhere far off behind him, there came a ringing shout. Someone was roaring at the top of their lungs. Gunnarr grunted with hope, and the man’s head jolted upwards at the sound. And yet it was a shrill, thin voice. A girl’s voice trying to sound fearsome. A little girl. Kelda, Gunnarr thought. She had come back for him.

A hidden energy flared in his chest, and he fought with renewed vigour to break free. The man was distracted, his grasp relaxed only slightly, but it was enough for Gunnarr to squirm loose. Still doubled over with pain, he tripped onto the river bank and dragged himself clear of the water.

Kelda was scrambling down the bank and arriving at the water’s edge, her delicate features scrunched with aggression, seemingly unafraid. She looked pathetically small, a child playing a game, as he had been only moments before. Gunnarr’s heart went out to her as he watched her play her role so dutifully, waving her stick left and right as she roared, just as he had told her to.

‘Run!’ he tried to call to her, to beg of her, but his voice was an airless whisper. He could only look at her, and before his eyes he saw the change that came across her face as she took in the scene properly for the first time. In the space of a heartbeat he saw the game become reality, her bravery turn to foolishness, and her innocence revealed as weakness.

Her cry fell silent when she saw the intent in the eyes of the man who still knelt in the middle of the stream, glaring at her. The stick fell forgotten from her hand when she turned her head to the boy in the water, whose mouth was gaping further and further apart with the weight of the liquid filling it, as if he was screaming in silent anguish. But it was when she turned to look at Gunnarr that the last of her resolve finally snapped, for there she must have seen something that she never had before: fear in his eyes.

Her face and body seemed to go limp. The focus drained from her eyes and they glazed over with terror. Gunnarr tried to drag himself towards her, but he was not half as quick as the man, who saw the girl’s senses leave her and surged eagerly from the water to take advantage. Kelda did not so much as react to his movement, like a hare transfixed by a stoat, and the man caught hold of her easily, a hand on each of her shoulders. For an instant he paused, thrown by her lack of resistance. Then he released an awful sound, like a beast about to gorge away a yearning hunger, and dropped to his knees at her feet.

‘Gunnarr,’ Kelda murmured quietly, as the man started tearing at her clothes, but otherwise she stood as still as a carving.

Gunnarr had plenty of time to choose his spot. The man was engrossed, intoxicated, his head bowed and hands shaking as he fumbled with the ties on Kelda’s smock. His ears were deaf to footsteps. The knife that he’d discarded as he wrestled Gunnarr to the ground was forgotten, or at least it had been until Gunnarr had retrieved it from the shallows. Even Kelda did not give Gunnarr away, so numb with fear that she barely seemed to notice his creeping approach even when he stood barely a yard from her face. As he stood looking down at the man’s shoulders, Gunnarr could hear his ragged breathing, coarse and urgent. He raised the knife two-handed over his head, and dragged it downwards with all of the strength he could muster.

The man erupted upwards with such force that Gunnarr was hurled backwards into the stream once again. Only a quiet groan escaped the man’s lips, but his neck arched as if he was being pulled by the hair, and his mouth opened so wide that the skin on his face might have ripped.

Gunnarr stared up at his work with morbid fascination. The knife had entered just beside the right shoulder blade and there it remained, almost hilt deep. He was certain that that would be enough, that the man would soon sink to his knees, but he did not. Instead he whirled in fury, and his eyes found Gunnarr lying in the water at his feet. A crazed expression burned on the man’s face. He began to lumber forward. Gunnarr scrambled to his feet and drew the curved skinning knife from his belt.