Vampire - Deep Midnight Part 42

With the help of the monks, the fire was quickly built. A deep sorrow seized him as he dragged the body of the great berserker Gunther into the flames. Torsos, limbs and heads were gathered. He could think of no words as the bodies went into the flames. The monks chanted prayers in Latin. He hoped that their supplications would bring the Norse to their own Valhalla. Yet as they smelled the burning flesh and watched the flames snap and crackle and rise to the sky, Ragnor suddenly grabbed Peter's arm. "My brother. I did not bring his body to the flame. Did you see him? He must receive this funeral rite as the others . .."

"The brothers collected all the bodies," Peter told him. "Except that of the woman, Nari."

Ragnor nodded, and when it was done, he went back into the cave for Nari. She stirred, and awakened, and looked at him gravely, shaking as she stretched her arms out to him. "I was so afraid."

"You're all right now."

"I'm so frightened . .."

He cradled her in his arms. "I thought you were dead. You were nearly thrown into the flames," he told her.

"But you saved me," she said, and smiled. "Ah, Ragnor, in my father's defense, you have lost everything. But we will build a world between us."

He set her upon his horse as they rode back to the church by the sea. Nari wanted to remain in the sun, though it was growing dark by the time they returned.

She could remember nothing of the night before. She could tell them nothing of their enemies.

Peter sat with Ragnor, having him relive the battle over and over again.

The monks brought food, fowl they had killed in the forest. Ragnor was ravenous; the meal did not end the hunger that seemed to be tearing into him. He knew that Peter was watching him, and as he eyed the monk in return, he again found himself seized with the desire to consume the monk.

They had been in the church; he stood abruptly and went outside. And to his horror, he found Nari down by the water, seated on a rock, the body of one of the brothers dragged over her lap, his throat torn open. Nari looked up at him. Her lips were coated in blood.

He wanted to lash out at her in horror, put her to death himself at that moment. But more than that...

He wanted a share of the blood. The scent of it was a power unlike anything he had ever known. He rushed forward and pushed her away; he began to ravage the body himself.

Covered in the good man's blood, he staggered to his feet.

Nari smiled at him. "There is another world out there. A world of pure power. Greater power than even you have ever known."

He jerked her to her feet.

"No. We will not live like this."

She pulled away from him. "You think you're so strong. You're weak! You don't begin to understand the gift you've been given."

"Gift?" he said incredulously. "We are cursed!"

She came close to him, leaning against him. "Help me, then. Help me."

"There has to be a way ..." he murmured, then he shook his head. "Come." He drew his sword from its sheath and brought it back to the church.

Nari cowered at the entrance. "I can't ... I can't go in."

"Then wait here."

"You intend to destroy us."

"I intend to give us Valhalla."

He entered the church, taking his sword and throwing it at Peter's feet. "Do it!" he demanded, shaking, his voice a roar. "Take my head, and see that I am burned to ash, and cast to the sea. d.a.m.n you, do it now! And Nari .. . you must see to Nari as well. Then set a flame on a dragon boat, and send our remains, together, out to sea."

Peter ignored the sword at his feet.

"I cannot," he said.

"Peter, don't you understand, you fool. I just ate one of your holy men!"

Peter shook his head. "Look where you are standing. In G.o.d's holy place. I have seen you with the desire to ravage my neck throughout the day; when we found you, I knew that you were no longer one of us. But you are who you are, and even changed, you still have the power to fight evil."

"You idiot, I am evil!"

"You could not be here, not in my G.o.d's house, if you were."

Ragnor let out a cry of rage and strode from the church, determined to show Peter the truth. He meant to take Nari, but she was not there.

The stupid monk! He would not believe, he could not comprehend the agony, the hunger, that tore at him. He strode straight amid the monks who worked calmly at their tasks, stoking a fire, chopping more wood. He let out a roar, a cry, a howl, ready to tear into one of them just to prove his own menace. But the monks stared back at him, unshaken.

He turned and strode into the forest, then ran ...

And as he ran something happened. He was hunched, he was down, he was a beast, racing through brush and forest and trees. Then he slowed. There was a buck ahead of him in a lea. He crouched lower and began a slow, stalking movement through the gra.s.s. He attacked the creature.

His hands had no fingers, just claws. He reveled in the fury of his attack, in the taste of blood.

And later . . .

The moon was full again. He rose, and he was himself, and he clutched his head in his hands, and wept. Tears did not come. His body shook with the violence of his agony, and in the end, he sat, and watched as the sun fell, and he felt a surge of power coming into him.

Peter found him there, came to him, not afraid of the night, or of Ragnor.

"You must destroy me," he told Peter. "Look what I have done."

"You've eaten a deer," Peter said with a trace of humor. "I am fond of the meat myself."

Ragnor shook his head. "I am one of them, one of the monsters."

"You must come with me."

"Where?"

"Back to the church."

Ragnor looked at him with amazement and then aggravation. "So that I can consume another monk?"

Peter merely started walking. Ragnor swore and followed him, staying on the monk's heels, as if in warning that at any moment, he might rip into him. But never once did Peter so much as look back.

The area of the village and the church smelled of burning flesh. The brothers had cremated their own.

In the church, Peter took Ragnor's hands. "You will swear a vow tonight to answer to a higher power."

"I don't believe in your G.o.d."

"I think that you do. But it doesn't matter if you swear to the One True G.o.d, or to the Allah of the Arabs, to Thor, or even the earth G.o.ddess of the pagans who came to this place before us. It is the nature of men, and of the world. There are forces. That no one denies.

There is thunder, and there is calm. The earth quakes, and is still. Men fight, and they find peace. There are the innocent, and the evil. You will swear as I tell you, because I need you, and because you must exist, because for every force, there is a counter-force. My G.o.d would have no use for you if not for the freewill of men, and the compa.s.sion within them."

"You are a madman."

"Then treat me as one. Do as I ask."

Ragnor repeated the words the monk demanded.

When he had done so, he realized that the monks had come into the church and were on their knees.

That night, he lay in the church in misery. The night sounds did not come. Yet long after midnight, in the darkness of deep midnight, he felt the craving to escape.

He stood by the doors to the church, and Peter came beside him.

"What is it you want of me?" Ragnor cried to him.

"You will learn. You will learn to harness the pain." Ragnor did not believe him.

At dusk the next day, Nari returned. She came to him with bowed head, tears tremulous in her eyes. "Help me, they want to hunt me down, destroy me."

"We should be destroyed."

"No .. . they will not harm you. Please, let me stay with you. If there is a way ... I must be with you, I beg of you."

He had never felt so alone, or so enraged, and above it all, so helpless. She knew what he felt. And she had discovered the agony within, and the only way to appease it. There was a way. She would stay with him, she would learn.

The monks built them a place to live while they stayed on at the church. In time, Ragnor discovered that the anguish could be appeased.

The forest was nearly depleted of deer.

The most savage boar could be quickly tamed.

It was a strange living; the monks ever watching, and riding on their own by day. Ragnor at last asked Peter why it was that he stayed, and what he hoped he would find when he rode. The attacks that had come so forcefully had ceased; the creatures had moved on.

"I will stay as long as you need me," Peter told him, and Ragnor was surprised, because he was certain that the monks would be much safer elsewhere.

But Peter would not elaborate.

In those days, it didn't matter. There were discoveries he made on his own. The ability to think, and to be. The strange and awesome power of the mind, and the senses. And then there were the nights, with Nari.

They had formed a bond. Greater than the horror they shared at what they had become, greater than the knowledge, the acceptance of what they were. She seemed to understand him. At night they ran, felt the wind, the darkness, the power. They feasted on blood; they made love as wildly and savagely as they hunted and hungered.

At the first light, they slept, and rested.

The monks watched, and waited.

In a year's time, Ragnor grew restless. He talked to Peter and told him that he wanted to go home, or to the isle he had called home for so many years.

Peter studied him carefully. "You're ready."

"I know that I am."

"And Nari?" Peter asked.

"She listens to me."

Peter was quiet. "Then go home. But remember, we are here."

"Why? Why don't you just go home as well?"

"Because it isn't over."

Ragnor didn't believe him. There had been no more disturbances. The few villagers who had survived were rebuilding. In time, the earth would replenish, and the population would grow. Others would come, and the cycle of life would go on.

"Return when you feel you should," Peter told Ragnor.

He sailed the next day with Nari. They returned to the isle where he had settled with so many of their followers. He created a great story regarding his brother's death in battle, every warrior deserved such a saga.

He lived with Nari, and again, sailed the seas with his men. There were wars to fight that were right, and he fought them with a vengeance.

He feasted on the violence that ruled such savage fighting. Nari was like a Viking queen, awaiting his return, and sharing with him the secret of his ever-greater strength.

Then, again, after months had pa.s.sed, he felt the urge to return to the church where Peter stood guard against the evil he was so certain would come again. Nari chose to remain behind, telling him that there was a reason she must stay. A rune-sayer cast the stones, and said that it was fate that she should do so.

Ragnor returned to the village with a nagging worry that something was wrong. Yet when he arrived, the village was thriving, though the people still slept in the church by night. The fields were rich, the game plentiful, and others had found the village by the sea.

Ragnor slept alone in the small wooden shelter that had been made for him. He spent days with Peter, talking, arguing, learning.

Then, at dusk one night, Ragnor found Peter standing on the steps of the church, staring out at the coming of night.

"What is it?" Ragnor asked.

Peter looked at him strangely. "You don't know? You don't feel it?"

"No."

"There is something ..."

"What?"

"They've come back."

"They?"