flashed behind his eyelids and sent shards of pain shattering through his skull. Or it should have been pain, like every other time he’d awakened to pain so sharp that it had sent him hurtling back into unconsciousness. Instead, it was darts of light that roused him enough to open his eyes and it took an extraordinary effort to accomplish that minor task. Almost too much effort, as the need for slumber pulled him under again. But the sensation of falling was enough to make him finally open them. The light that had teased him before had disappeared to a hazy golden crest on the horizon. It was dawn or perhaps dusk and he was floating in the sky, which was absurd.
Gunnar turned his head to the left and then the right and realised that it wasn’t him that was floating, but everything else around him. The horizon wobbled as if the world itself had shifted. A man’s head drifted into his line of vision and then moved out again. Soon, more heads followed, but none that he recognised. These weren’t his men.
The realisation brought with it the awareness that he was on a ship. Only it wasn’t his ship, because these weren’t his men. His gaze travelled over the vessel, trying to identify it, but he was having trouble keeping his gaze steady to look for markings. There was no figurehead on the prow.
‘Where are we going?’ he called to the man nearest him. He hardly recognised his own voice and it was delayed when it came to his ears.
‘Up the coast, Brother.’ Eirik knelt beside him, his face looking solemn and grim in the morning light. It must be morning if they were setting sail.
Gunnar jerked, not expecting to see anyone appear so close before him. Brother. The word rang around in his head and he had trouble holding on to it. ‘Brother,’ he whispered the word as if he’d never heard it before. As it found purchase, he was able to capture it on his tongue. ‘You are my brother.’
‘We haven’t been good brothers, not in a long time. I regret that.’
Gunnar smiled, though he couldn’t understand his compulsion to respond in that way. Perhaps it was because his body was finally numb from the endless pain that had gnawed at him, though he had no memory of what had caused the pain. He felt heavy and weightless all at the same time. He raised his hand and, after an attempt or two, it landed on his brother’s shoulder. ‘Aye, Brother. But there’s not much comfort in regret. What use is it?’ The soft leather of a well-worn tunic met his fingers, not the chainmail of battle. He thought it curious Eirik wouldn’t arm himself properly for battle and he meant to comment on it, but another figure he’d not noticed before materialised at his side. ‘Vidar, little brother. You are a man now. Do you go to this fight with us?’
Vidar glanced at Eirik before shrugging. ‘I go, but Eirik is staying.’
The unfamiliar smile stayed on Gunnar’s face and he couldn’t make it leave no matter how he tried to summon a scowl. He struggled to keep his eyes open as that strange heaviness tried to claim him. His head drooped and he noticed that his legs were covered in furs. Did they think he’d go to battle like a woman, wrapped in blankets and furs? His legs wouldn’t obey his command to kick them off so he yanked at the coverings. And then he stared because one leg was wrapped tight in rags and appeared twice as big as the other. But that didn’t seem possible, so he considered the fact that the appendages weren’t his legs at all but something foreign from his body entirely.
Eirik grabbed his hand, drawing Gunnar’s attention back to him. ‘I thought you’d like this back.’
Gunnar frowned down at the lock of hair Eirik had placed in his palm. He immediately recognised it as Kadlin’s, but wondered how it had become separated from his tunic. A feeling of unease sat heavy in his stomach. ‘How did you get this?’
Eirik was quiet for a moment, drawing Gunnar’s wavering attention back to him. Only then did his brother raise his troubled eyes from the blonde lock. ‘I never knew Kadlin meant so much to you. I should have realised.’
An image of her beauty swam before his eyes, bringing back that bizarre smile he couldn’t seem to shake. ‘She is everything.’
Eirik looked down. Something was troubling him, but Gunnar had no idea why that would be true. He’d gone off to battle numerous times without this concern from his brother. Deep down, he realised that it must be linked to the strange memory of pain, but he couldn’t hold on to the thought long enough to formulate a question. Finally, Eirik met his gaze again and said, ‘I want you to live, Brother. Remember that when you awaken.’
Gunnar intended to ask what he meant, but then Eirik pressed a small wooden barrel of mead to his side and draped Gunnar’s arm around it. It was the kind they would strap to their horses when out on a short campaign. He pulled out the cork and pressed it to Gunnar’s lips. Gunnar obliged him and took a long draught, but something didn’t feel right.
‘Drink more if you feel pain.’ Eirik put the cork back in and rested the barrel against Gunnar’s side.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I do this for your interest, Gunnar.’
The ship rocked and he recognised that it meant they were leaving the dock and heading towards the sea. But there was a disturbing hole in his memory and his time with Eirik was fading. The blackness was settling around his vision and threatening to overpower him again. He grabbed Eirik’s cloak and pulled him back. ‘Where are you sending me?’
‘Live, Brother.’ Then he pulled away from Gunnar’s grasp with ridiculous ease and seemed to disappear.
Gunnar tried to sit up, but his head swam and began to ache, so he laid back and allowed the comforting blackness to claim him.
* * *
Gunnar floated the entire trip, his body lightened by the strange sense of weightlessness that followed him. There were times when he realised something was odd, that his limbs weren’t responding as they should, that his thoughts were muddled, but he couldn’t find the strength to care. The allure of sleep was too much to resist. Its relentless pull on him was the only thing that grounded him. That split second before it overcame him was the only moment when he felt as if his body was connected to the world around him; it weighted him down and pressed his back solidly to the wooden platform that had become his world.
Most of the time his dreams were nightmares, clawing at his mind with their vicious memories of the past. As always happened when his mind turned dark, it took him back to that night he’d spent with Kadlin. He remembered how he’d spent hours gazing down at her beautiful face, peaceful in sleep. He’d wanted to remember it for ever, because he’d known the horrible words that would have to be said before he left her. He’d known that he had to push her away, even as it had turned his stomach to mar something so precious.
Then the nightmare shifted to that sunny day as an adolescent when he had finally acknowledged that he was as worthless as his father liked to claim. It was the day he had tried unsuccessfully to strike from his memory; the day that he and Eirik had been attacked. A small group of criminals had found them fishing and had overpowered them, tying them up and taunting them with promises of their dark intentions. Gunnar had managed to escape his bonds and had run until he found a washerwoman who sent her son to get their father, so Gunnar had returned. Except he’d been too young and powerless to do anything except hide and listen to Eirik’s screams as the men tortured and violated him. He’d made himself listen, absorbing every scream as if it had been his own, each one a confirmation of how contemptible he really was. Confirmation that had only been reinforced once his father had arrived and saved Eirik only to sneer at his bastard for not intervening.
At times Eirik’s
