The Caldera Read online

  “All right,” said Wulf. “Just don’t tell anyone else.” He had a sudden, horrified vision of the entire Heron brotherband turning up to watch. He glanced at his brother and saw from the expression on his face that he was thinking the same thing.

  “Not a soul,” Hal lied cheerfully. “Not a soul.”

  • • • • •

  The following day was gloomy and overcast, which fitted Wulf and Ulf’s mood as they waited by the high beam at the obstacle course. The beam was a solid log set three meters above ground level, spanning a deep pit filled with oozing, sticky mud. At least during the brotherband season, it was filled that way. As the course had not been in use for some months now, the pit of mud had dried out. It was caked and cracked.

  Ulf looked into it, remembering the days of their brotherband assessments. He had fallen from this beam several times, as had his brother.

  “Glad we’re not doing that today,” he said.

  Wulf considered the idea. “Might be preferable,” he said. He glanced around as he heard footsteps approaching. The course was set at the top of a hill overlooking the town. Now three figures were appearing over the crest and he recognized the judges—Per, Luda and Woten.

  He sighed with relief. “No sign of Hal and Thorn.”

  “Maybe they’re not coming,” Ulf said hopefully.

  “Maybe,” Wulf repeated, but with a lot less hope.

  The judges hurried across the grass toward them. Ulf noticed they were looking round furtively, making sure there was nobody present to observe the proceedings. He realized that Thorn had been right. If any word of this somewhat unusual method of selection got out, the judges would be subjected to merciless ridicule.

  As they came closer, Per, the senior judge, looked around one last time to make sure they were alone, and then rubbed his hands briskly together.

  “Good. You’re on time. Now, let’s get this over and done with, shall we? Everyone ready?”

  Obviously, Per wanted this done as quickly as possible. But Luda demurred.

  “Shouldn’t we run through the rules first?”

  “Rules?” Per said with some asperity. “What rules? Everyone knows the rules for berg-blad-trasa! You berg, or you blad, or you trasa. That’s it.”

  “But how many rounds? Who keeps score? Do they face away from each other to start and turn when they’ve chosen their call? Do I score for Wulf or Ulf? And how will I know which is which? I notice they’ve left their colored scarves behind.”

  “There’s no scoring,” Per said angrily. “First to win a round wins the contest. That’s it. As for how they stand, they face each other with their hands behind their backs, I count to three, and they show their hands. Luda, you call out the choice for . . .” He was about to nominate one of the twins when he realized that he didn’t know which was which. He grabbed Ulf by the shoulder and dragged him to one side, facing his brother. “This one,” he continued.

  Ulf grinned at him. “I’m Ulf,” he said obligingly.

  “Congratulations,” Per said through clenched teeth. He manhandled Woten, the other judge, into position beside the remaining twin.

  “And you call out the choice for this one. I assume you’re Wulf?” he added.

  Wulf smiled. “If you say so,” he said. The twins liked to maintain a little uncertainty about their respective identities.

  “I do,” said Per. “So here’s how it will go. These two face each other, hand behind their backs—”

  “Which hand?” asked Woten.

  “IT DOESN’T MATTER!” Per shouted. Then he made an effort to calm down. “I’ll count to three and each contestant will immediately show his choice. You two will call the choices for your respective competitor, clear?”

  All four nodded.

  “And if either contestant hesitates, or doesn’t show his hand until his opponent’s choice has been revealed, he’s disqualified. All right?” He addressed the last two words to Luda, who shrugged.

  “Fine. I said we needed to establish the rules.”

  “Well, now we have. So if everyone’s ready?”

  “Ready,” said Ulf.

  “Ready,” said Wulf.

  “Ready,” said Luda.

  “Just a moment,” Woten said, and Per heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Are you going to count one, two, three or three, two, one?”

  For a moment, Per was speechless. Truth be told, he hadn’t even thought about this. Now he decided. “I’ll count one, two, three,” he said, and Woten nodded sagely.

  “Now . . . are we ready?”

  “Ready!” said Luda.

  “Ready!” said Woten.

  “Ready!” called Ulf and Wulf together, facing each other, hands behind their backs and half crouching in anticipation.

  Per took a breath to begin the count, when a cheery voice interrupted proceedings.

  “Hello there! What’s going on here?”

  chapterfive

  The tension went out of them all like air out of a punctured bladder as they turned in the direction of the shout.

  Emerging over the top of the slope were three figures, outlined by the lowering sun. Per squinted against the glare and recognized Thorn, Hal and Stig approaching them. He looked balefully at the twins.

  “You had to tell them, didn’t you?” he said bitterly.

  “We didn’t tell them,” Ulf began, then he amended the statement. “I mean, we didn’t mean to tell them—”

  “It just sort of slipped out,” Wulf said.

  “We just sort of said that we might be up here at the obstacle course,” Ulf continued weakly.

  If looks could kill, Per’s glance would have dropped them both dead on the spot. He opened his mouth to speak but then realized the three interlopers were now within hearing. He glared at them instead.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked coldly.

  Hal grinned disarmingly at him. “We were out taking the air and we saw you all here,” he said. It was an obvious lie, as the new arrivals couldn’t have seen anyone before they actually came to the top of the hill. That was why Per had chosen the spot in the first place.

  “I imagine you’re working on a way to decide the tie between Ulf and Wulf?” Thorn said, smiling in his turn.

  “That’s right.” Per’s voice was tight and unwelcoming.

  “Mind if we stay to watch?” Stig said. “After all, there’s a good chance I might be competing with the eventual winner here.”

  Woten decided Per might need a little help. “It’s sort of private,” he said.

  Stig turned a surprised look on him. “Private? I thought Maktig events were open to all to view.”

  Woten shrugged awkwardly. “Well, they are . . . but this one isn’t.”

  “Because they’re qualifiers,” Luda put in.

  Hal turned to him, his grin still in place, still wide and ingenuous. “What difference does that make?” he asked.

  Luda made an uncertain gesture in the air. “The loser might be embarrassed,” was the best he could come up with.

  Thorn laughed. “Oh, I’m sure that’s not a problem.”

  Hal looked around the obstacle course. “So, which of the events here did you decide to use as a tiebreaker?” he asked. “The high beam?” He studied the dried cracked-mud pool below it. “Not sure I’d like to fall off into that. You could break a leg. Or were you thinking the rope swing?”

  He pointed to another installation, where a thick rope hung above a wide pond. Contestants would leap for the rope and hope to swing across the water to the far side. Like the high beam, it hadn’t been used recently and the pond was decidedly green and malodorous.

  He waited for an answer, still smiling.

  Finally, Per replied, “No. Neither of those.”

  “Then it must be the rock climb?” Stig suggested, ind
icating a short, but steep, sloping section of grass. Contestants had to carry heavy rocks from the bottom to the top in that event. It was a new one that had been added to the brotherband obstacle course. None of the Herons had contested it during their trials.

  Again, Per shook his head in the negative.

  “What is it, then?” Thorn urged.

  Per glared at him. It was all too obvious that these three grinning buffoons knew what the contest was to be. He decided he might as well come clean.

  “It’s berg-blad-trasa,” he said in a subdued tone.

  Thorn made a pretense of not hearing correctly, cupping his hook behind his ear as if he couldn’t quite hear him. “Say what?”

  Per took a deep breath. “Berg-blad-trasa,” he said firmly. And for one horrible moment, he thought that maybe they hadn’t known, and that he’d given it away. Then he saw them smothering their smiles.

  “Berg-blad-trasa?” Thorn said. “You’re using a children’s game to decide a Maktig challenger?”

  “Yes. We are,” Per replied obstinately, waiting for the inevitable argument. But instead, Thorn nodded his head several times and sat on a nearby log.

  “That works for me,” he said. “Go on with it.”

  “You’re planning to stay and watch, are you?” Per asked.

  Thorn nodded as Hal and Stig took seats beside him.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He winked at Ulf and Wulf, who looked as if they wished they were somewhere else—anywhere else.

  Per realized he wasn’t going to get rid of these three observers. He decided he might as well make the best out of a bad situation. He turned back to the other judges and the twins and said in a tight voice, “Right. You all know the rules—”

  “What are they?” Stig asked.

  Hal looked at him with mock annoyance. “Oh, come on, Stig! Everyone knows the rules of berg-blad-trasa. You berg, you blad or you trasa.”

  “But there might be special rules for a Maktig contest,” Stig said. “If so, what are they?”

  “You don’t need to know them!” Per shouted at him. “We know them. Ulf and Wulf know them. That’s all who need to know them. Now may we continue?”

  Stig threw his hands in the air in apology. “Please! Don’t let us delay you any further.”

  “Thank you,” Per said in a voice heavy with sarcasm. Then to the others, he repeated, “You all know the rules, stand ready . . .”

  Ulf and Wulf resumed their crouching positions, each with his right hand behind his back. Woten and Luda frowned in concentration. Per drew in his breath to signal the start of the bout.

  “This is really very exciting,” Hal said to his two companions.

  Per turned on him. “Will you SHUT UP!” he yelled.

  Hal half recoiled from his seat on the log. “Please. Ignore me. Go ahead with your little game.”

  Per gritted his teeth and decided not to rise to that bait. He turned back to the contestants. “Ready?” he called. The four others nodded. Then, because all the interruptions had confused him, he counted: “Three . . . two . . . one!”

  Nobody moved. Ulf, Wulf, Woten and Luda stood frozen in place. Luda finally turned to Per.

  “You said you were doing one, two, three,” he said apologetically.

  Per cursed under his breath. He could hear the three bystanders sniggering behind him. He whipped around and glared at them, and they hastily rearranged their features. The fact that they were trying so hard not to smile was even worse somehow than if they had guffawed like loons. He turned back to the contestants, who were still poised, tension obvious in every line of their bodies.

  “Very well,” he said heavily. “Here we go: one . . . two . . . three!”

  Ulf and Wulf flashed their right hands out from behind their backs, their four fingers extended to indicate a sheet of cloth.

  “Trasa!” yelled Woten and Luda simultaneously.

  “That was sort of predictable really,” Stig observed.

  “Shut up,” Per growled, without looking at him. He had hoped above all hopes that they would settle this on the first call. Now he saw that it would go to two rounds.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Ulf and Wulf, staring at each other intently, nodded.

  The judges replied in a chorus. “Ready!”

  “Then here we go. One, two, three!” This time, the twins presented their fists clenched, to resemble a rock.

  “Berg!” chorused Woten and Luda together.

  Per looked at the sun, low in the west. He estimated there was only an hour of daylight left to get this done. He hoped it would be enough. But he was beginning to fear that it might not be.

  “Again,” he rasped. “One, two, three!”

  “Berg!” the two judges called simultaneously, as both contestants chose the rock symbol once more. The twins scowled at each other.

  “Stop copying me,” Ulf said.

  Wulf bridled at the accusation. “I’m not copying you. You’re copying me!”

  “Be quiet!” Per snapped. “We’ll go again. One, two, three!”

  Both hands flashed out. Both judges shouted simultaneously. “Blad!”

  This time, Ulf and Wulf held their index and second fingers out in a V, to represent the shape of a pair of shears.

  “Time out,” said Per. He beckoned Wulf closer. “I thought you said you had never lost at this game?”

  Wulf smiled at him. “No. My brother said that. I just agreed with him.”

  “Then what are you doing, messing around like this?”

  “Well, neither of us has ever lost. But when we play each other, we don’t win. We tend to draw.”

  “Every time?” Per asked, a terrible doubt forming in his mind.

  Wulf considered, then nodded cheerfully. “Pretty much,” he said.

  Per groaned softly. He should have realized, he thought. He waved Wulf back to his position.

  “We’ll give it another half hour,” he said. “If you’re still drawn, we’ll give it away for the day.”

  So they continued. By the end of the half hour, all three judges’ voices were hoarse from shouting, and the twins steadfastly continued to draw every match. Finally, Per called a halt.

  “That’s enough!” he said. “We’ll have to find another way to choose between you.”

  “Like what?” Ulf asked.

  Per glared at him. “We’ll probably draw straws,” he said.

  The twins nodded.

  “That sounds fair,” said Wulf.

  “Not very exciting, but fair,” Ulf agreed.

  “We’ll leave it for two days in case I get a better idea,” Per said. “I’ll let you know the time and the place.”

  The three onlookers rose to their feet. They had enjoyed the spectacle enormously. Somehow, it was edifying to watch someone else being annoyed by Ulf and Wulf’s nonsense. The three judges stalked off without a word, trying to reestablish their dignity.

  “Thorn and Hal are having dinner at my house,” Stig said. “Would you two care to join us?”

  “His mam is making spiced pork pie,” Hal said. It was the one dish where Stig’s mother’s cooking excelled even that of his own mother, and his mouth watered at the thought of it.

  Wulf shook his head reluctantly. “Better not,” he said. “We should get some rest before the next contest.”

  “You’re drawing straws,” Stig pointed out, but Wulf simply nodded.

  “I know. But Per might hold on to them really tightly.”

  chaptersix

  Hannah Olafson’s pork pie was every bit as delicious as Hal had expected. She smiled fondly at the three Herons gathered around her table, their chairs thrust back and their legs stretched out before them. Hannah enjoyed cooking for guests, but since she had been deserted by Stig’s father years before,
the opportunities to do so were infrequent.

  She was always delighted when her guests included any of the Heron brotherband—but particularly Hal and Thorn. They had befriended her son when he was a spiky, belligerent teenager, always ready to take offense at the slightest hint of criticism, even when none was intended. His quick temper, coupled with his powerful build and athletic prowess, had caused the local inhabitants to steer clear of him. With Stig, you could never tell when an innocent jest might rub him the wrong way. Once that happened, things tended to get nasty very quickly.

  Hal had been the first to befriend him and give the lonely boy the sort of company and regard that he craved. Hal was ostracized as a boy too, and he knew the bitterness of growing up fatherless and alone.

  Thorn had entered Stig’s life a few years later, when the Heron brotherband formed and he took on the position of mentor to the boys. Once Thorn had sworn off strong alcohol and become part of Heron’s crew, serving as the battle master, Stig saw a man he could admire and hope to emulate. Thorn returned the affection to the two boys. They were willing to give him a second chance in life, whereas many of his contemporaries hadn’t been.

  “More pie, Thorn?” Hannah said now. She indicated the remains of the magnificent pie that she had served up. “I could cut you another sliver?”

  Thorn considered the offer. “Just a small piece, then,” he said. As Hannah measured a slice with her carving knife poised over the golden flaky pastry on top of the pie, he added hastily, “Not that small.”

  Hannah adjusted the angle of her knife and looked at him inquisitively. He pursed his lips, and she moved the knife to form an even wider angle. He nodded.

  “That’s perfect. As I said, just a small slice.”

  She cut the slice and deftly balanced it on the flat of the knife blade, moving it to his plate, where a few small crumbs testified to the fate of his former helping. Thorn picked up a two-pronged fork carved out of walrus bone and attacked the slab of crusty pastry and fragrant pork mince. He stuffed a large forkful into his mouth and chewed, smiling rapturously.

  “‘A’s very goo’,” he said, which Hannah interpreted to mean, “That’s very good.”