A/N: I'm really sorry about the delay in posting a new chapter. I've had a pretty horrendously busy and drama filled few weeks. Anyway, I really wanted to have something to post by Christmas, and I've just about managed it! Hope to hear you thoughts on it, and merry Christmas! (Or insert other holiday here, for those not celebrating Christmas).
Chapter Eight: Wodan's Hill
My head hurt. I was under the covers, still dressed in my clothes from last night, and there was the distinct smell of meat being cooked nearby. And by Abraham's beard my head hurt.
"Good, you're awake." Pa walked into the hut, and I saw a brief glimpse of the outside world, a gloomy, pre-dawn sky. "You returned late last night so I let you sleep in, but you must hurry, we'll be leaving shortly."
"Leaving for what?" I asked, but in the time it had taken me to force out a reply he'd already gone. My tongue was sticking idly to the sides of my parched mouth, and my stomach felt a little unsettled. I hauled myself up. Moving made things worse, the room swaying more violently. Red hot cinders bounced about inside my head.
I found what seemed to be the entire village gathered outside, the odd sleepy mutterings of conversation punctuating the quiet. I cornered Ike, who was standing near a group of girls.
"The sun is yet to rise, why is everyone up?" My voice was embarrassingly hoarse, so I coughed a couple of times. "Where are we going?"
Ike laughed. "You look like death. Actually, you look worse than that, death would probably be an improvement…"
"Enough, just tell me what's going on."
"I don't really know. Some pagan ceremony apparently. Probably killing goats or shouting at the moon again or something." He sniggered.
"Not so loud!" I urged, anxiously stifling a laugh. Predictably, laughing hurt my head as well.
I had hoped to find some food, or at least a slug of water, but before I had the chance the group began to leave, led by Randolph and some of the other men. Even Stan's grandfather Marvin – the oldest man of the village – was walking with us, and he rarely came outdoors.
I caught up with Stan, who was walking near the front. "I feel terrible." I moaned.
He laughed. "You've got the morning's curse."
"What's that?" I asked, groaning as I realised we were beginning to trek uphill.
"The story goes that there are two sisters, the Goddess Sola rules the day, and her sister Nott reigns over the night. They fight, and each wants to spite the other. Nott gives people mead and ale, so once the sun sets they will be merry and praise the night, but Sola is jealous, and so whenever you drink, the next morning you are cursed to pay back your joy."
I was struggling to focus on each sentence as he spoke. "So what, I should pray to 'Sola' and this will all go away?"
"Course not. I'm not dense y'know, I understand it's only a story." I wasn't aware my tone had sounded so harsh. "I just thought you might be interested, is all…" Stan added bitterly. I made a mental note to stop insulting him like that, but my whole life I'd been told I was a know-all, even in Frankia.
We were moving up through the dark trees now, climbing Wodan's Hill, the highest point for miles around. Only a handful of torches lit the group, crackling and casting an uneven glow. I fought back an urge to vomit, though I wondered if I might feel better if I let it happen.
Stan ruffled my hair, smirking. "You'll be fine by noon."
"I hope so." I grumbled. I was glad that he seemed to have forgiven my rudeness already. My mother used to tell me I had a club for a tongue – harsh and clumsy. "So, what is the point of all this?"
"It is the Rite of Summer." Stan said, removing a flask attached to his belt and handing it to me. The water was liquid gold pouring down my throat. "This will be the first sunrise of summer, so we give thanks to the gods for making it through the winter moons. This hill is a holy place, for us pagans." He laughed, "You will see when we reach the top."
"If, Stan." I corrected. "If I reach the top."
"Well," he smiled, "you better make it. You may be skinny, but I aint carryin' you if you fall. I have a bit of the morning curse myself…"
In truth, it wasn't long before we rose above the treeline, and the pines began to thin and disappear. Some eager daylight reached the summit before we did, even before the sun itself had appeared, giving a faint but majestic view of the dark world below. Hilltop after hilltop stretching as far as the eye could see, so vast, and trees so small, so unending that they could simply have been hairs on the earths head.
At the very top the earth subsided into misshapen steps of rock, curving up to a flat, grey plateau. It was on this platform of stone that everyone gathered.
"When was this built?" I asked Stan.
"It wasn't." He replied simply. "This is how it's always been."
It seemed difficult to believe; it felt like someone had built a stage on top of a mountain. Small chants broke out somewhere amongst the group, but I had no urge to try to listen. Just standing upright was enough of a challenge.
My mind wandered over the last two weeks – for it had been almost exactly two weeks since we packed up and left Frankia. It felt like much longer. More had happened in these last two weeks than in a year back home.
I saw Stan staring at me out of the corner of my eye, and when I met his gaze he held out his arm for me to take hold of, and moved us through the throng of people to the edge of the platform. Below, the hilltop subsided into darkness. I couldn't tell how far the fall would be, but I knew it couldn't be survived. Subconsciously, or perhaps knowingly, I held his arm a little tighter.
"What now?" I asked quietly.
"Just watch." He replied, pointing out at a hill across the valley below. I kept my gaze fixed on that point and let the minutes drift by with the morning breeze.
Eventually I began to understand why this place was deemed holy. The sun began to edge above the distant hill, lighting it like a torch. In fact, it seemed from our position it seemed to rise exactly between two large stones, curved up like horns.
"Tefelberg." Stan announced. I remembered the name from one of the signs we passed in the woods. "It means-"
"Devil." I interrupted. It made sense, as I watched the sun's inferno fully appear behind those sinister horns of stone. The hill was like a demon lurking above the entire valley. "The devil's hill."
"So it is." Stan confirmed, smiling. I could hear murmurings behind me as the village stood in awe of the majestic sight. My aching head could not even detract from the moment.
"The old stories say that this is a bad omen." Stan gestured to the sky, which was smattered a faint pink. "If the sky is red on the first sunrise of summer, then blood's gonna get spilt."
"Oh." I had no better response. It seemed that this was the real reason for the murmurs of the crowd, and some were pointing across the valley in another direction, towards the new Frankish camp.
"Pagan fools." Stan said with a wry smile, and I couldn't suppress a chuckle. "Two summers ago there was a godly blue sky, but we still scrapped with the Dacians."
Still, nonsense about omens or not, as we moved back down the hill I finally felt I understood a little more about these people. These woods had something mystical about them, and not just Eric's brutish legend about evil creatures. Nature had placed great beauty here, and these pagans understood it far better than my books had taught me.
"Stanley, Kyle!" A girl called from behind us, and Gwendolyn gracefully hopped alongside, her dark hair bound up in a ponytail bouncing after her.
"Hi Gwendolyn." I nodded, wondering if I should leave and allow her and Stan to talk, given what she had said the other day about one day marrying him.
"Kyle you look unwell! I hope you don't have the flu…" Gwendolyn said, seeming to back away a little in disgust.
"No, Stan has been telling me I have 'the morning's curse'." I explained with a laugh. "I feel almost my usual self again already."
She smiled, but then abruptly stopped. "It's so…sweet, that he calls you Stan, Stanley." She said, in a way that implied she didn't find it 'sweet' at all. "Maybe I shall do the same, so long as you don't mind, of course."
She touched his arm gently as she spoke, and for some reason a wave of anger washed over me briefly. I could not bring myself to warm to this girl, with all her bittersweet smiles and harsh glares.
"Do as you please." Stan replied, barely turning to look at her. I felt I'd won some kind of victory, and soon afterwards Gwendolyn left with a silent scowl.
We ambled back into the village at the rear of the group, and by the time we arrived there was some kind of commotion taking place, with angry shouts and rushing around. Eventually we found the source, and it chilled me to the bone.
Franks.
A man was stood perched upon one of the logs around the fire in the middle of the village, robed in white linen with a red sash thrown around his waist. Next to him stood two fully armoured Frankish knights.
I cast Stan a worried glance, and he looked equally alarmed, but I lost him as he fought his way to the front of the crowd that had formed around the scene. The villagers were fuming, shouting curses and some even waving weapons, but no one dared to strike the first blow. I could not help but think of the 'bad omen' we had dismissed back on the hilltop.
"Hush!" Randolph's booming voice cut across the noise, and gradually it receded. "What makes you intrude on our land?" He asked with his usual gruff speech.
"My name is Nicolas Silvestre." The man spoke for the first time. He was not dressed as a general; in fact he looked more like a man of learning, like one of my old schoolmasters, or a priest. "As you can see, you need not be alarmed" he gestured grandly to the knights next to him, "I have not come armed with a force with which to fight."
"Then what do you want?" Someone in the crowd shouted, met with general yells of agreement.
"I have come simply to talk." Even I knew that the villagers would not be pleased with that answer, and more shouting followed until Randolph silenced them again.
"Fine," he conceded, "I should warn you first, that should any harm come to me, it would be punished by my King, Charles Martel, also known as Charles the Hammer, with great vengeance." He seemed to nod his head towards that godforsaken fort up in the hills, and the crowd once more reacted angrily, noise welling up in protest to such a blatant threat.
As the man calmly waited for the clamor to die down, I spotted Stan in the crowd. He was looking steely eyed, stood at the very front, and I noticed his hand subtly clutching his wolf's tooth necklace through the fabric of his shirt.
Finally one of the knights raised an ironclad fist, and as a baited silence fell the man in white spoke again.
"I have come to convert you."