Chapter 19
ERANN
As Erann drew closer to the lonely steading, he was surprised to note how still everything felt. There was no sign of footprints in the snow. The outer door was shut tight, sealed against the cold and dark of the Long Night. There was no smoke from the snow-covered grass roof.
Later he would wonder if he might have smelled it sooner had the weather been warmer.
As it was, it was only as he neared the door that the unmistakable aroma of death reached him.
His heart sank. He and his uncle had discussed their precariously low food supplies.
Clearly, not everyone had been as lucky.
The steading looked neat and well-kept, hugging the ground.
It wore its cloak of Long Night snow, which glittered with every hue he could imagine.
The steading stood south of Vatna Jokull, the shadows from the hulking mountains not reaching the land.
Everything about it suggested care – this had been a place that was looked after.
He hesitated. By rights, he should stay and see to the dead, then report what had happened to the jarl.
But all he wanted to do was run away and continue his journey to Rankil’s steading.
He didn’t want to face death now, not when he felt the stirrings of something like hope again.
His conscience warred for a heartbeat. Then, with a heavy sigh, he walked to the outer door and pulled it open although it protested, pressing his fur over his nose to block the smell of death and decay.
Inside, the farm was dark, the shutters all closed against the Long Day. The smell was there, but not too overwhelming. After a moment, he let his hand fall away from his face and stepped further into the dimly lit room. Thin beams of sunshine cut through the gloom, the inner door left open.
He moved carefully, bumping into furniture as he made his way to the hearth.
He looked around for something to fuel a fire, but stopped.
Surely if they’d had fuel for a fire, they’d still be alive.
He looked at the table for a moment, wondering why they’d not burnt it.
But then, maybe they’d run out of food first for there were no crumbs to be seen there.
Maybe they’d succumbed to starvation before the cold had become unbearable.
Erann turned towards the shutters, feeling his way along the wall in the dark until he managed to find one and pull it away.
A narrow ray of sunshine permeated the gloom of the room.
He moved along the far wall, removing all five shutters, careful not to step on anything he might regret later.
When all the shutters were down, he braced himself and turned to face the room.
He expected to see the bodies of the inhabitants lying where they’d fallen on the sparse furniture.
But there was nothing.
He frowned. Where were they?
He went back to the table to see if anything had been left behind. Most people, when they knew they weren’t going to make it through the Long Night, left some kind of note explaining what had happened to those who found them. But the table remained empty.
‘Now what?’ he muttered. His voice was loud in the quiet of the steading.
He rested his hands on the smooth wooden tabletop, considering his next move.
There was nothing for it. He turned towards the loft ladder, unease growing with every step.
If the bodies were up there, he wouldn’t be able to bring them down alone.
He’d have to burn the entire steading to give them proper death rites.
It would be a waste of a perfectly good steading – but that was the way of his people.
He doubted anyone would pass this way soon, and as soon as the thaw began in earnest, the bodies would quickly start to decompose.
The ladder remained in place. He put one boot on the bottom rung and began to haul himself up. As he drew level with the loft floor, the musty smell of death grew stronger.
‘At least I’ve found you,’ he grimaced.
He heaved himself into the loft, wrapping his fur back over his nose.
It was almost completely dark. He couldn’t make anything out at first. He paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim light from the sun sneaking through the lower windows, before taking a slow step forward, arms outstretched in front of him.
His foot struck something solid, throwing him off balance. He put his hands out to steady himself – and immediately regretted it as they closed on something cold.
‘Urgh,’ he yelped, unable to help himself.
He forced himself to look closer. A small child lay on the bed before him, no older than three rotations.
They’d obviously been there for some time; even in the terrible cold of the Long Night, the body had started to decompose.
The bright yellow curls lay in a halo around the child’s head, his eyes mercifully closed.
Erann gulped back a sob and advanced more cautiously, edging around the bed, and came across another small body.
Fur blankets were pulled up over the marbled child.
If he’d not known better, he might have thought the child was merely sleeping.
The child was slightly older than the first. The face was peaceful, innocent, for all it revealed the ravages of starvation.
Without thinking, he reached out, brushing the soft blond curls framing the child’s face.
He took a steadying breath, and looked further into the gloom of the loft. There were six more beds he needed to examine. It was becoming increasingly obvious to him that the family hadn’t been cold, merely very hungry.
He strode forward with a confidence he didn’t feel. In the next bed he found an old man and woman, lying side by side and then a younger woman, a small baby at her breast. The infant’s face was frozen in a hopeless attempt to feed, and he felt tears running down his cheeks.
Next to the last bed, Erann found the body of who he assumed was the farmer of this land, clutching the hand of another child as they breathed their last. The man must have come to comfort the child, only to weaken and die himself.
The child’s face was twisted in pain, his hollow eyes wide open, as if in a silent plea.
Erann choked back another sob.
The father must have managed to close everyone else’s eyes, and then the child had done the same for his father. But there had been no one left to help him.
Erann found it incredibly hard to look away from the stare.
He couldn’t leave him like that, eyes peering blankly into space.
With a deep breath, he leaned forward and tried to close them, but they wouldn’t stay shut.
Fumbling on the floor, he found a couple of small stones and gently placed them over the eyelids to weigh them down. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Erann was about to turn to leave when he noticed a scrap of script in the child’s stiff hands. He bent down and gingerly pried the fingers open, wincing as he did as they cracked, until he could pull the piece of text free.
Feeling numb, Erann made his way back down to the main room.
It struck him how lucky his family had been to survive the Long Night.
More than once, he’d been certain they’d used the last of their stores – only to find something he’d overlooked the last time.
A missed bag of peat. Jars of curdled animal blood.
Containers of hardened butter. Once, three snow hares, skinned and ready to cook.
Even now, he didn’t recall hunting them.
The scrap of writing lay heavy in his hand. Did he want to know the sad story it would tell? He wandered towards the open door, clutching the tattered page, unwilling to read it. At last, although he didn’t feel ready, he unfolded it.
It bore a list of names, and when they’d started to die.
The baby was only weeks old – Sunna. Her mother, Estrith, had died with her.
Next had been the small three rotations old child, Harold.
After that, the other names became more hurried, scribbled one after the other, in a rough hand, as if someone had been trying desperately to make sure they’d be remembered. The grandparents were Auld and Snorri. The father, Swein.
The last name was another Snorri, written in shaky, childish letters. Erann could only assume it had been written by the child in the loft, after his father had died – the one whose eyes stared up at the dark ceiling above his head.
A silent trickle of tears slid down his cheeks. He angrily wiped them away. He couldn’t stay here, but he’d ensure they received proper burial rites. He would have to burn the place.
He turned and hurried outside, needing to get away. There was too much tragedy here. It was too close to what had nearly happened to him, his mother and brother. He still didn’t understand how they’d made it through the Long Night.
Outside, twilight had settled over the land, the daylight fading fast. He could no longer see the path he’d followed earlier. In the distance, the mountains, with the tallest, Snaefell, behind them, were swathed in deepest magenta and had become no more than a remembered menace.
He could use his heatstone to kindle a fire and walk on into that forbidding dark towards Rankil’s. Forget what he’d seen here.
He recoiled at the thought.
‘No. These people deserve their death rites,’ he said into the silence, aware of the rising wind and dark clouds which promised more snow. It would be another bitter night, and the wind would make it hard for the flames to catch.
‘I’ll have to wait for sunrise,’ he muttered.
He stepped away from the entrance tunnel.
‘I can’t sleep in there.’ The thought alone made him judder at the memory of touching the forever cold hands and eyelids. ‘So now what?’
He knew there were no other steadings close enough to reach before night set in.
‘I’ll have to stay inside.’ Even saying it made him uneasy.