6
The first day of the voyage passed without conversation, and Erlandr was glad. He thought he might be intimidated by the solitude of being surrounded by open water, but he wasn't. It was a surreal solitude that matched his surreal state of mind. That he was leaving everything he knew, probably forever, hardly seemed true. Instead, he was dreaming. The sky was the colour of the sea, which was the texture of the sky, and their boat was suspended somewhere in the illusory space between. They were sailing on water but could just as well be sailing on air. Maybe they were. In the middle of a great nothing there are no points of reference.
The Riverraider was equally content to stay silent. Erlandr assumed this was because he'd been on so many sea voyages in his long life that an ordinary one bored him.
Goll perhaps wanted to talk, but the slow, constant rolling of the water, which Erlandr found soothing, turned his face pale and regularly caused him to lean his head out of the boat and vomit into the sea. It wasn't until the third day that his stomach settled, and when the wind had stopped and night fallen, he took a swig of his ale and said, "It's strange, isn't it? The three of us in the middle of a liquid darkness we can't drink and that wants little else but to drown us."
Erlandr huddled tighter under his cloak, chilled by the words and the cold, still air. He didn't reply. Beside him, the Riverraider appeared to be sleeping.
"Doesn't it make you wonder whether we're not making a mistake by leaving our land?" Goll continued. Behind him, the sea was flat as a table top and black as coal. "It's a risk, a gamble. Attempting to evade death might end up being the death of us. I'm not particularly fond of either drowning or dying of hunger. Are you a gambler by nature, Erlandr?"
Erlandr didn't want to answer, but when Goll didn't stop staring at him, he gave in and said, "I'm not making a mistake, but I speak only for myself."
"Of course. Except, you and me, we are both escaping."
"What are you escaping from?"
"We," Goll said, emphasizing the word, "are escaping from the wrath of Chieftain Likvidr." He slid his knife out of his sleeve and tried to catch a trace of starlight on its blade. "Remember that mine was the knife you stabbed Halfdan with."
The Riverraider stirred. Erlandr was no longer so sure the older man was asleep. He might only be resting, ready to act at the slightest provocation.
"We are partners in crime," Goll said.
Erlandr felt his fingers make fists under his cloak. Goll was no partner of his. He'd been just as cowardly as the rest of the bystanders. He, too, had merely stood and watched. There was no equality between tossing a knife and using it to make a man bleed. Moreover, what Erlandr had done to Halfdan was not a crime. It was justified. He'd stood up to a brute. He was about to put that into words when something hit the deck from below.
Goll slid away from the side of the boat. The Riverraider opened his eyes, looked at both men and said, "It was only a fish."
"It's always only a fish until it's something else. It's a deep and mysterious place under the surface. I've heard stories of creatures that live there, breathing water like we breathe air, that prey on the blood of men who cross their watery territory," Goll said, holding his knife at the ready.
Erlandr didn't know whether he was being serious or fooling, but a chill ran up his spine anyway. "Have you ever heard of a creature like that?" he asked the Riverraider. He felt childish asking such a silly question, but it was nonetheless comforting when the Riverraider answered.
"I have heard," he said, his eyes closed again, "but never seen. The only monsters I have ever known were men as flesh and bone as us."
Nothing more hit the bottom of the boat. In the morning the wind returned.