Chapter 22 Landslide Origins
Chapter Twenty-Two
Landslide Origins
“Grandfather told me there was once a wall of summer ice and snow where the wilderness now lies.”
My half-brother, Heikkinen, is on watch duty with me on the east-facing platform of the palisade. We received our gákti together, after surviving thirteen winters as boys. This night, we have been calling ourselves men for over ten years.
He is married. I am not. My heart remains as frozen as the northern mountains.
We have only one job. To be on the lookout for danger and fight to the death to protect the tribe if or when it comes.
“We are the people of the Fell-Sapmi tribe, brother,” Heikkinen grunts. “Summer ice and snow runs in our veins. The midnight sun makes us strong.”
The ladder creaks as a heavy body climbs up. The man throws back the hood of his cloak when he sticks it through the trapdoor.
“Our brethren to the east have sent word.” Rundas, Balto’s eldest son, is here to bring us news. “The wild wolf warriors of Karelia have reached the land of the Tundra Nenets. The tribe has fallen.”
“Why are those Ural mountain heathens constantly warring? We have no winter supplies left for them to steal.” Heikkinen is weary from the disturbing news.
The killing spree of the Ural mountain tribes has its origin in Carpathia.
The deadly frenzy has spread slowly, but in the last few years it seems to have built the momentum of a wildfire.
It is said the soldiers wear the fur of wolves—and they fight like the beast, too, using their teeth when their swords are blunt from hacking.
Making himself comfortable on the platform sitting cross-legged, Rundas explains.
“We worship the god of war as well as the next man, but some survivors have spread the rumor that the Carpathian-Karelians worship a different god now. She is the goddess of death. They call her Queen. They are mad with bloodlust when she drives them into battle ahead of her. They say she is deathless and all mighty.”
Heikkinen grabs his crotch and laughs. “I will fuck the bitch halfway to the warrior’s hall in the sky if she really wants to see death.”
We smile through our wind-chapped lips.
“Rumors are like the wind. Welcome in summer and cutting in winter. It will be the spring equinox in two moons. The Karelians only fight during the long nights of winter. We will be safe until the next snowfall.”
The sound of a horn blowing interrupts my optimistic forecast.
Crunching snow alerts us to the man outside the palisade. His face is pale under the moonlit darkness.
“Bija mu sisa!” He speaks our language, the tongue of the north, so we will let him in. All three of us clamber down the ladder. Heikkinen lifts the barricade as Rundas and I push the gate open.
The man’s gákti shows us that he is a farmer. He is an impressively built man with thick brown braids and beard. He throws the bloodstained axe on the ground to show he is a friend.
“The wolves of war have come. Light the fires. Call the outsiders to come within the palisade walls.”
Rundas goes to tell his family to douse the fires and move into hiding in the tunnels and holes. He blows his horn as he goes. The sounds of men standing up and reaching for their swords filter through the night air.
“What is your name, stranger?”
“I am Theron, Son of Rebane. I did not come here to hide—only to warn you. Now that is done, can I pick up my axe?”
Heikkinen grins. “You’re a farmer. I doubt you would be of much help to us during battle.”
Hefting the huge axe in his hand, Theron says grimly, “I can swipe off the head of a reindeer so swiftly the creature still thinks itself alive. I will fight with you.”
“Here.” I throw Theron my shield, which he catches with some skill. “Let us fight side by side. We will show the Carpathian-Karelian alliance who is stronger: the god of war or the goddess of death.”
The sound of dying men is all around me.
It is so hard for me to remember what happened in the darkness of the deepening twilight.
No warrior would engage with me. No matter how hard Heikkinen, Theron, Rundas, and I tried to force the invaders to fight us, we failed. They would bat our swords away with their shields and flow around us like rapid water.
Swarming over the palisade using poles and scaffolding made from spruce tree trunks, the soldiers were more like wasps or hornets than men.
We had no choice but to take the battle outside the gate. But only once we’d left the safety of the palisade behind did we realize that’s what the invading army wanted all along.
Something behind the ravening hordes was watching us keenly. A tent set on a platform raised up high on the shoulders of twelve tall men. I saw a pale hand slide out of the tent flap and beckon one of the Carpathian soldiers to come closer. The man would listen intently and then issue the order.
And the orders were to leave certain Fell-Sapmi warriors alone.
We were completely overwhelmed in the end. The other men of my tribe were cut down like reeds. Only a handful of males were left alive. We are the tallest, brawniest, and handsomest of the Fell-Sapmi warriors.
Spears lowered, the soldiers clad in wolf pelts corralled us together, poking us with spikes until we had no choice but to cluster into the animal pen.
Four other men are already huddled in there, trying to keep warm while we attempt to block out the sound of the dying. I can tell from the way their eyes and brows slant like eagle wings that the prisoners are from other northeastern tribes.
These men have sick-looking skin as blue-white as the surrounding snow, and they are shivering as if they have a bad fever. And yet, for all their suffering, they still live.
A man with silver-blond hair falling over his shoulders speaks some of our language through chattering teeth.
“I am Artim, son of J?rvi, of the Nentsy people. If you are hungry, my bjelkier will bring you meat.”
“You brought a white dog with you to war?” Heikkinen scoffs.
Hearing its name, a fluffy white dog emerges from underneath a blanket of snow and goes to lie with Artim. The man stops shivering as the dog’s thick fur covers him.
The two men slumped next to Artim have shorn their black hair close to the scalp under the reindeer skin caps. Like the rest of us, they are magnificently built and as handsome as princes. One of them says something in a strange language.
Artim translates.
“He is Jaecar and next to him is Ifan. They are the sons of Lars. They are from the shores of the black sea in the south.”
I point to a very young man curled up in the corner. He looks miserable and shy. A fresh warrior with no notches in his sword blade. He gives us no name, nor does he speak.
“Enough with all the introductions.” Heikkinen sounds irritable because he is alive and his sword is still in his hand. “What are these perkele wolf-fuckers going to do with us?”
“Do I have to say it slowly for you to understand, brother?” I want to smack his dense head. “We are to be sacrificed to the death goddess.”
Artim nods. “Juo, juo. All of you will be taken tonight one by one—”
His word for yes sounds the same as the way we say ours: “Yoh.”
I have no time to react. Leaning over the barricade, one of the wolf men throws a short thong of leather weighted down at each end into the pen. Whipping around my ankles, the bonds hobble me as I try to run away. I go crashing into the snow like a felled tree.
Covering the other men with bows nocked with arrows, all my companions can do is watch helplessly as I am dragged out of the pen.
They are dragging me to the tent, which has been lowered to the ground.
My death is so close, I can taste it.
My captors throw me through the tent flaps without any ceremony. A husky voice, full of hunger and triumph, gloats over me.
“So young, so beautiful. Come here, my handsome lover. Let me look at you under the lamplight.” She speaks my language with a trilling, elegant accent.
The warmth and glow from the oil lamp encourages me to open my eyes. I am aware of my gory clothes and blood-encrusted skin. I killed many men before they were able to capture me alive.
“Are you the Goddess of Death?”
She looks like a human female. The woman’s skin is golden from the light. Her long red hair flows like fire down her back. Her pale eyes are like two flints of granite. She is indescribably gorgeous as she leans back against the soft cushions scattered on the ground.
The only clothing she wears is her long hair. A plate of burning embers warms the inside of the tent, so the tips of her rounded breasts are relaxed and smooth. The thick bush between her thighs is bright orange-red, like a sunset.
When she laughs, it sounds like water tinkling into a sunny pool.
“Nay, I am just a witch woman. A lonely enchantress looking for love. Some would call me the Queen of the Wolves. The Blood Empress.”
She holds her hand out to me and pats the cushions. “Come and lie with me. That is all I ask. If you please me, I will spare your life.”
I am a man who speaks his mind.
“You want me to fuck you until that fat, red cat of yours spasms? You will not be the first woman to scream the names of the gods as I plow her field, just so you know.”
Again, she laughs. “Oh, I am going to love you.” Spreading her thighs, the woman shows me the tight slit. Sliding her finger between the plump lips, she reveals the glistening juices to me.
I can’t help myself from engorging. All I can think about is fucking her. She has such dainty, pretty feet.
Stripping off my clothes, I no longer care about my sweat-soaked, blood-streaked body. The woman’s eyes widen when she sees my mounting excitement.
“My eyes did not lie when I saw you and your companions swinging your swords with such precision. When a man handles himself like that in battle, I can tell that he is hiding a long and thick brutish weapon under his loincloth.”