SNAFU: Hunters

They crested a rise and beheld the broad river-valley, green and peaceful, dotted with dark, coarse boulders and smoother grey standing stones. No carrion-crows circled, no scavengers roved, no stench of decay reached them on the mild spring breeze.

All that moved was the rippling current of the water, shining like glass; a few fish leaped, a few birds flew. Here and there, horses grazed.

Horses… many still saddled and bridled… the buckles glinting in the sun… other glints and flashes of metal showed from the grass… as if from sword-blades or bright-polished helms.

“I see no corpses,” Valhild said.

“I see no one at all,” added Osig. “They aren’t here.”

“But they were,” Anbjorn said. “I know these horses. I know this gear. That’s Kjarstan’s war-stallion! And, there, his banner, by those stones! Stefnir would never have let it fall so long as his arm held strength.”

“Unless they fled,” said Inglar.

“They did not flee!”

“What, then? Did they surrender? Were they taken, meekly, without a fight?”

“I’ll give you a fight, you–”

“Come and try–”

Valhild nudged her horse between them, a one-woman shield-wall with a dangerous scowl. “Settle it later,” she said. “Or I’ll settle it now.”

There were no corpses, no indications of struggle, only wandering, riderless horses; shields and spears and a banner-pole as if carelessly cast aside, dropped swords or cloaks simply strewn here and there among the random scatters of stones.

“Could they have...” Thrunn trailed off, as if unable to bring himself to utter the words.

“Vanished?” Egil suggested.

“Pff, vanished,” muttered Inglar, then subsided as he caught Valhild’s look.

“They were here,” Thrunn said, in a slow but solid sort of reason. “Now they aren’t. So, they must have gone somewhere.”

“Then, Freya’s tits, where?” Anbjorn flung up his arms in frustration.

They dismounted, one by one, warily. Hreyth last of all swung down from her steed. This was not what she had expected to find, no monster’s slaughter-yard, no grave-barrows or rock-hewn giant’s halls. Some other mischief seemed at work here, a subtler magic, seidr or sorcery.

“Someone lost a boot,” Osig said.

Anbjorn held up a helm, undented, undamaged. “This is Udr’s. He had it from his father. He wouldn’t have left it, not while he lived.”

Atli stooped to a twinkle in the grass and came up with a jeweled brooch in his hand. “And who, winning such a battle, would walk away without taking plunder?”

“This was no battle,” Egil said. “There’s no blood. Not a drop to be seen.”

“The king sent skilled warriors,” Inglar said. “Are we to believe none of them so much as wounded a foe?”

“Or fought foes that did not bleed,” Anbjorn said.

Osig eyed him dubiously. “Every living thing bleeds. Man, beast, or monster.”

“And men plunder,” said Atli.

“Living or dead, men plunder,” Egil agreed. “And beasts devour, and monsters do both.”

“But, whatever did this, did neither.” Valhild frowned, shaking her head. “I don’t like it.”

Hreyth unfastened her cloak as the others continued their search. She spread the heavy grey-wool cloth on the ground and laid the wolf pelt upon it.

“It’s as if they did vanish, plucked from their very saddles as they rode.” Anbjorn turned his friend’s helm over and over in his hands.

“And from their very boots?” Thrunn glanced uneasily around.

“While leaving the horses untouched?” Inglar added. He had not joined in the searching, but stayed near Hreyth, watching her.

For those questions, none of them could offer answer.

Onto the silver lushness of the wolf’s fur, Hreyth cast a fistful of rune-marked bones from the bag at her belt. They landed with rattling clicks, some atop others, runes showing blood-red, soot-black, and gold. She studied them, the patterns of them, the arrangement they’d made, their meanings and messages.

Earth-Smoke-Man-Stone-Breath-Change-Theft-Danger.

She rose slowly, gaze sweeping over their surroundings. The peaceful river valley, green with new grass… its sloped sides curving up toward rugged, rocky peaks… the spring-blue sky overhead now gone pearly-pale… skeins of mist lingering in dark fissures and clefts, wafting in curls around the bases of the many tall and scattered standing stones…

The stones.

The standing stones, akin to those erected by the Old People of half-forgotten days, but these not towering huge and set in henges with altar-slabs and crosspiece lintels.

These, of smoother texture and lighter hue than the rocky peaks above or crag-ridges and dark boulders jutting from the earth; these were each at the most not much taller than a man, and of a random, straggling-line order… but for the cluster, almost a ring, near to where Anbjorn had found his war-brother’s helm…

The stones.

An apprehensive silence had fallen, creeping with the same soft, insidious stealth as the fog seeping from the shadows. When she spoke – “The stones!” – her words came louder than intended, a sharp cutting of that silence. Everyone started, some gasped, and several hands went to hilts.