A/N I wrote this a number of years ago but wound up abandoning the third story in the series. I want to restart it, but I know that this needs revision—both for typos and timeline/story inconsistencies. This is a revision. It may not seem like fanfic at the start, but the references for True Blood begin at the end of this chapter. No copyright infringement is intended. This is all just for my own practice as a writer.
The logical part of Carly Michael's mind knew that 48° F/9° C wasn't really cold, certainly not in Sweden. And it also knew that she should be grateful that the American landowner of the archaeological site had provided them with trailers to sleep in during the excavation. 48° wasn't as cold inside a trailer as it could have been if she was trying to sleep inside a tent.
During her first excavation, when she was an undergrad, she slept in an old army tent on a New Mexico plateau. And even though it was the desert, and much further south, the temperature dipped even lower. So now, on this late July night, she knew that she should just be grateful for the trailer, even if it rocked back and forth because of the wind and the rain.
Of course, during the summer time in New Mexico, the sun went down all the way, and it got completely dark for at least eight hours. Carly hadn't bought an eye-shade at the airport as her dissertation adviser had recommended, so sleep hadn't come easily since she'd been on this dig.
But the artistic part of her mind spent those wakeful hours entertaining romantic visions of Viking raiders as they pulled their long-ships back onto the shore. The ships loaded down with treasures—Baltic gold and amber—would come up to the beach with the tide and tall, handsome warriors would draw the bellies of the ships up to a firm berth.
I have to get up, Carly decided. I'll walk down to the dig, check the tarps, and walk back up. That will kill an hour if I walk slowly.
The sun was finally all the way down, but twilight would be back in just three hours, and she wouldn't be able to sleep much later than that anyway. Marlena, the Swedish archaeologist on the dig, was sleeping in the bunk below her, so Carly sat up carefully and slid down the ladder on her belly. The sleeping trailers didn't have "facilities," so she put on the lined clogs she left by the door, put on her parka, and slipped out the door.
The "necessary" was primitive, but enough. As she came down its steps, she could see the full expanse of the excavation site. The first stage of the dig was done. A web of ropes gridded off a 15 by 15 m area in 50 cm x 50 cm squares. The topsoil, with its accompanying grass, was gone, and now, each day, ten archaeologists, in different stages of their careers, went one square at a time with a trowel and brush.
Carly's job wasn't digging—she got a chair at the artifact table, where she photographed each artifact. She also wandered through the dig every hour, photographing the site as centimeters of soil disappeared into the screens.
The lead archaeologist, a salty old woman from the University of York, was awake as well. She'd rejected the trailers in favor of the same canvas tent in which she'd slept and worked since her very first excavation. Some of the others on the dig joked that she'd worked with Carter in Egypt and just hadn't yet succumbed to the curse—or that it had worked in reverse and wouldn't let her die. Carly could see a light peeking out from beneath the door flap and through the cracking vinyl window.
"Who's there?" Dr. Crump threw back the tent door and flashed her "torch" into Carly's eyes.
"Just me, professor. Carly."
"Oh, hello dear. Land of the midnight sun getting to you as well, I see." Dr. Crump was jolly, and always chuckled after every utterance. No one knew quite how old she was.
Carly smiled. "I usually sleep a little when the sun goes down. But it doesn't seem to last very long."
"Well, there's always the work. Do you want to see what I've got going?"
"Sure. I'd love to."
"Please don't mind the mess, dear." Carly couldn't quite see where the mess would have been. The tent was beautifully arranged, just like something off the set of an Indiana Jones movie. Carly began to wonder where Dr. Crump kept her full bar.
Stretched out across the north side of the tent, opposite the door, was a long wooden work table.
"Are those log cabin blocks, Dr. Crump?"
"Yes, aren't they wonderful!" Dr. Crump had been working on a Scandinavian long house that now stretched across the table. "We haven't found the real post holes yet, so I've been entertaining myself by conjuring the house."
"Conjuring?"
"Oh, yes my dear." The elderly Englishwoman's eyes sparkled in the low lantern light. "Archeology is magic. We envision what was once there, summoning the past from the dust."
"I just get to photograph the dust, at least now."
"Oh, but dear," Dr. Crump grasped Carly's forearm. "You are the greatest magician of us all."
Carly gasped a little. She'd never told anyone her secrets. But right now, in the darkness, with the wind howling past the tent, she wondered if Dr. Crump knew what she could do. "What do you mean, professor?"
"Why, darling, when we find people, you give them back their faces!"
Breath came easier. Dr. Crump was just talking about Carly's work with facial reconstruction. "Yes, I guess that is a kind of magic."
"Of course it is, dear. Nearly the best magic."
The tent flap blew open and the spell spun by Dr. Crump's earnestness evaporated with the cold gust.
Dr. Crump patted Carly's arm and sent her back to bed with a hearty, "Sleep is precious. Make sure you get some, dear."
Dr. Crump's admonition encouraged Carly back toward the trailer instead of toward the dig site. She stretched and took in the night one more time. As she looked at the dimly illuminated dig site, Carly swore a shadow loomed over the tarps. She rubbed her eyes and looked again, and it was gone. She slept little the rest of the night.
"I've got gold!" Everyone on the dig team had waited to hear such an outburst from someone on the ground. Carly grabbed her camera and ran out to the grid. Dr. Crump heaved herself up from her square, nearly taking the entire grid system with her.
"What is it?" Crump asked.
The slight, squirrel-faced art historian from the University of Toronto, hemmed and hawed: "At this point, it's difficult to tell. It's round, so perhaps a shield boss?"
Carly started taking pictures the moment she got next to the square. "I need scale. Can you put down your ruler?" Ruler deployed, Carly started getting closeups of the gold half-sphere now exposed in the black soil.
Diggers who had been working on apparent post-holes moved to adjacent squares, redoubling the efforts of the eager team, who paid little attention as the sun drifted toward its setting point. Carly paced between the site and the sifters, who began finding beads, dense pieces of wood that had survived through the ages, and fragments of steel, instead of the char and charcoal they'd found for the past seven inches of soil.
As she approached the site, Carly was aware of a hush that descended on the team. Dr. Crump struggled again to a standing position and called out to the team, "Colleagues, friends, gather close, please."
The whole team gathered in a semi-circle, with Dr. Crump at its focal point. "My best estimate for this site is the end of the tenth century, sometime in the 990s. The people interred at this site died at least one millenium and twenty years ago. As their children and tribesmen and friends laid them out in the center of their long house, they most likely consigned their souls to the possession of the valkyries or the residents of Asgard. We know little of their funeral rites, apart from their incendiary properties. But today, as we unearth these people, we need to remember to honor them, to honor their memory. Although they be bones today, these people have descendents who walk through Sweden, perhaps through the world. We must remember to honor these people as we would honor our own ancestors. Let us take a moment to make that commitment. If you have a god, pray to her."
Carly folded her hands. She knew she should believe in something, but she didn't. The years of Buddhist meditation she'd done to quiet her mind only left her a skeptic. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and relaxed. If she couldn't believe in her own god, perhaps no one would mind if listened in on their prayers.
Our father, who art in heaven...
Schma Israel...
Hari Krishna...
All-father Odin...
I wonder if I can get a publication credit off this dig...
When am I gonna get laid...
And that was why she rarely relaxed long enough to listen to the people around her, why she spent her life alone with a camera, or a computer, or her art. And the bones.
The bones spoke too, in their way, but mostly in her dreams, mostly she saw and felt. Whenever Carly handled a bone, she gained access to the life the bone had lived, to the memories of the mind that moved the muscles that surrounded the bone, to the emotions that person had experienced. She dreamed their deaths, initially, but the more she worked with the bones, the more of their lives she dreamed, until she could search for a mirror, or the smooth glass of calm water, and find their reflections.
That was her great academic secret. Although she wrote her dissertation on calculating muscle robustness from bone attachments on the skull, and other forensic anthropologists had used the formula successfully, Carly really relied on these dreams where she could feel and see the people whose faces she reconstructed. For every subject she'd worked on, she had pages and pages of drawings that recorded their lives, and helped to explain the artifacts found with them, and a portrait she kept for herself.
These sketchbooks and portraits were all sitting in a Tennessee storage unit until she got back from Sweden at the end of this season's digging. Starting in September, Carly would be relocating to Louisiana to work with Louisiana State in Shreveport, whose Anthropology program won a federal grant to identify the backlog of bodies from around the state, particularly the skeletonized remains that littered the gulf coast after Katrina. Carly was grateful that so many of the bones she would be working with were old, bones that had washed up and out of their graves, bones that likely didn't wind up in the ground because of violence.
Excavations preceded painstakingly, but yielded tremendous numbers of artifacts. So much amber, cloisonne, silver, gold, coral beads. Silver clothing pins, even some fabric fragments, came out of the grave. By the fourth day after their discovery, the bones were open to the air and ready to photograph.
Right away, she saw two bodies, a man and a woman, so tall—probably both close to six feet in height—with beautiful teeth, so likely no more than forty. But between them, tiny, tiny bones were embedded in the soil. Carly knew immediately what the bones were even if the other dig members seemed oblivious—they were the bones of a baby.
"Oh no. Please no." Carly began to weep. Dr. Crump came running over, her slightly bow-legged gait slowing her down.
"Carly, dear Carly! What is wrong?" Dr. Crump, who stood a full head shorter than Carly, grabbed the camera out of her hands and encircled her in her short, canvas-covered arms.
"It's a baby. I don't want to have to be with a baby." By now, Carly was nearly hysterical, her knees weakening, as she folded to the ground.
"Oh, dear, dear Carly. Don't fret, you know you won't be able to reconstruct a baby. There won't be enough bone left, dear."
Carly slowly gathered herself together: "I'm just tired. I haven't been sleeping."
"It's all right, darling. I wouldn't have thought this was your first baby. Didn't you work on graves in New Mexico?"
"No, it's not the first baby. But it looks like the first family all buried together."
Dr. Crump looked down at the grave and said plaintively, "Yes, that it might be."
Once the bones were out of the ground, the physical anthropologist from Uppsala laid them out on tables while Carly documented her work. The work trailer sheltered the remains from the wind and the rain.
"We don't have anywhere near a complete skeleton for the infant," Astrid said.
"No, no, we likely wouldn't. Children are mostly cartiledge, and that would have deteriorated," Carly affirmed.
"Well, I'm done. It's all over to you, now."
Carly looked sadly at the three tables where the man, woman, and infant lay. "Yes, I'll start and see what I can do." Carly gently touched a pendant on a plastic tray. "I still need to do a cast of this Mjollnir."
"I've done lots of excavations in Scandinavia," Astrid said. "I've never seen a Thor's Hammer in someone's hand. I wonder how it slipped there."
"Can you read it? It might be his name," Carly suggested.
"Do you think Dr. Crump would be angry if I looked at it?" Tuva looked like a mischievous elf.
"No, I can't see why. Like you've said, you've done a lot with Scandinavian digs."
Tuva used the plastic tweezers to put the pendant on the microscope platform. "It's got zoomorphic decoration on this side. Nothing terribly exciting, although it could be Fenrir."
"The Wolf?"
"Yes, Thor will defeat him at Ragnarok." Tuva smiled. "I love Norse mythology. It's no wonder Swedes are so nihilistic."
Tuva flipped the pendant over. "Well, here are runes. It says, 'I was made for Erik Ulfriksson.'"
"So perhaps we have Mr. Ulfriksson on our table."
"Perhaps we do. Thank you for letting me look this. I don't usually do much with artifacts. I usually just count the bones, measure, and try to figure out cause of death."
Carly paused, knowing that Tuva wanted to share information with her, a prize for letting her see the Mjollnir. "Do you have any idea about cause of death?"
"Predation. Definitely predation. It looks like wolves. Big, big wolves."
"How horrible." Carly wasn't looking forward to her dreams. "I can't imagine being killed by wolves."
"Dr. Crump will probably have some ideas about this, but it seems strange. Wolves don't usually attack settlements or groups of people. They usually seek out the wounded, or someone separated from a group. All three of them show similar injuries."
"Awful. Ummm...Tuva, could you let Marlena know that I'm going to sleep on the cot in here." Tuva cocked her head at Carly.
"Carly, I know you're taking this hard, but don't you think this is a little bit of an ...well...extreme reaction?"
"No, it's just that I want to keep working. I haven't been sleeping well, and Marlena just goes out cold. I don't want to disturb her."
The truth was that she knew that the dreams would be horrible. If these three people were killed by massive wolves, their deaths were terrifying, painful, hideous. And who knows how Carly would react when she relived them, or at least relived "Erik Ulfriksson's."
After Tuva left, Carly took off her cotton gloves, and began looking closely at the bones. Whenever she had a full skeleton, she liked to handle all of it, from the bottoms of the feet to the top of the head. Usually, if she examined the whole thing, shutting out the rest of the world, she'd get sleepy and quickly drift off.
Carly recognized the damage that Tuva mentioned. The right femur was broken, incisions from teeth visible above the patella. Most significantly, however, there was no hyoid bone. The wolf had torn out his throat. What a tragic irony—the son of the wolf slaughtered by a wolf.
As she anticipated, Carly was exhausted, ready, although not eager, for sleep. Although she hadn't told her trailer mate or Dr. Crump, Carly was prepared to sleep here for the next week or more, until she had her preliminary sketches done. These three bodies provided a special opportunity. She didn't have to search through their memories for a glimpse of them in a mirror—she could see them through each others' eyes.
Carly didn't know how quickly she'd fallen asleep, but she could feel the blood pouring from her throat, because his blood—his death-was now hers. Carly inhabited the dying body of the tenth century Swedish king—yes, a king. Clenching his bleeding throat, he saw two things, a wolf, bigger than any wolf he'd ever seen, striding away with his golden crown in its mouth. My crown, he thought, in Swedish, of course, but language differences always disapeared in these dreams. He couldn't speak, but he wanted to. Before him, he could see dead bodies-the bodies of naked men-and a beautiful young man who was crouching next to him. Seeing this youth filled him with love, with pride, with regret. The youth was covered in blood, but appeared uninjured. Tyr be praised, he thought. My Erik lives. And then blackness.
Carly stirred, but didn't fully awaken. She grasped her sketchbook and pencil and began, unconsciously, to draw.
The dream washed back over Carly as if she were drowning in the king's mind. Erik stood before him, his beautiful son, the only son who had survived. "Erik, it's time for you to marry." Beside him was his wife, his beautiful, tall wife, a peace-weaver, who had given him six children: three sons and three daughters, the youngest in her arms. Now, here he was, king of the Spear-Swedes, proud warrior, protector of his people, as he begged his son to marry.
"Father, how can I marry? I'm the only son of Ulfrik left. I need to stay here at your elbow and learn to be king." Erik had a winning smile which clearly was on its way to winning Brigid, the ripe, red-headed slave they acquired when they traded amber with the Orkeyinga last summer. King Ulfrik watched his son's eyes follow Brigid across the long house and especially as she bent deeply over the fire.
His wife sighed. "Yes, Erik, you're my only son, now, and I want grandchildren." She stroked her daughter's cheek. Even if they only had one living son left, Ulfrik knew that this infant in his wife's arms—this young girl would make as advantageous a match as his older two. One had married a king of the Rus to the east, one had married an Icelander of great prominence. Both matches insured trade in amber and timber, and he knew his son would continue to prosper, once he settled down. Ulfrik had cemented strong alliances that would bring his son continued wealth and provide opportunities for power.
"Yes, Erik, we want grandchildren, but only if we know that you're the father. I think Brigid has many favorites." Even with his son's foolishness, Ulfrik felt nothing but pride and love. Erik was the only one of his sons to return from his uncle alive; Astrid's youngest brother was wisest, most skilled of her brothers. If only all his son's had lived with Edvard.
"Don't worry, father, mother. When I bring you home a whelp, it will clearly have my brand." Erik laughed. "But now, I have business to attend to."
Astrid arranged her daughter's hair. "He's just as vain and insufferable as you are." She smiled lovingly up at her husband. "But he's as beautiful as I am."
"Nothing is truer, my beloved." She truly was his beloved. He knew that other men took concubines, or second wives when they traded, but he had always loved Astrid, and no other. Her mother's pride was the stuff of legend, but Astrid was mild, wise, and always faithful. If only their union had been more fruitful—he grieved that only six children had come to life. He should have had more sons, tall Spear-Swedes who could expand their territory or join the Varangian guard, raid the coffers of Byzantium and return triumphant, as Erik had when his uncle had returned him to his family a man. Astrid had conceived ten children in their twenty year union, but only six had breathed air.
A wolf howled outside the long-house, long, and uncannily. "Fenrir must be hungry," Ulfrik joked.
As quickly as he stood, Ulfrik's sentry screamed in pain, and Astrid's servant cried out, "Wolves, my lord, wolves surround us!"
Ulfrik saw Astrid out of the corner of his eye, gathering up the babe and fleeing to the bunks. Perhaps she could climb into the hayloft and be safe from these four-legged raiders. He swept to the side of the building to grab his sword from the wall. He came away with his sword, veteran of so many fights, in his right, and a spear in his left. No sooner did he have his hand on his sword, but a wolf lunged at him, biting at his thigh. Ulfrik thrust the spear through the wolf's neck. It whimpered, like a beaten dog, and transformed in front of him. A man, skewered on his spear, lay at Ulfrik's feet.
"No. No! Erik! Where are you, son!" Ulfrik screamed, a cry loosening from his chest, with all the terror and bloodlust it had ever had in battle.
One after another, his sentries and hallmen fell around him, some of them taking the wolf men down with them, some just falling dead, victim to the ravenous hold of the monsters. Ulfrik, his leg broken, tried to stand, and collapsed. He edged over to the wall to grasp another spear, so he could get to Astrid. The spear bent in his hand, and he heard Astrid screaming, "No! No, my baby! Don't take her from me!" Ulfrik looked over his shoulder to see a wolf growling through its teeth at Astrid. At its feet was bloody swaddling. The bloodied infant lay nearly naked against the firepit. The wolf lunged at Astrid, grabbing hold of her throat. As the wolf shook her back and forth, Astrid blinded it with the knife she wore at her side. Even blind, the wolf continued to shake, and Astrid continued to fight, even as blood poured from her wound. As she died, Astrid slit the wolf's throat. Before Ulfrik could move one step closer, Astrid, throat laid open, neck nearly broken, lay tangled with a naked man, who gasped and gulped as he drowned in his own blood.
"Father!" Ulfrik heard Erik scream as he moved into the hall. His sword plunged into the side of a wolf, who transformed into a man before Erik withdrew it. Erik stumbled, dumbfounded. He heard growling behind him and fell to one knee, sending his sword into another wolf that died a man. Ulfrik watched helplessly, his leg broken, his spirit eviscerated, and only caught the smell of the wolf that tackled him and ripped out his throat. He grasped at his neck, and watched as the wolf stalked away with his crown. Erik knelt before him. Tyr be praised. My Erik lives.
Carly awoke the next morning, hoarse, sore, and grateful to be alive. Every piece of paper in her sketchpad had been torn out, covered in scratches, the tracks of wolves and men, blackening them. Before anyone else could see, she gathered them all up, leaving only the sketches of the Queen, Queen Astrid, peaceweaver, proud mother, loving wife, out on the table. What could she share with Dr. Crump and the rest of the team? This wasn't Erik Ulfriksson. This was King Ulfrik of the Spear-Swedes. And they had been slaughtered by werewolves. "Shit."
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