The difficult part of pushing the wheelbarrow was not losing the head.

Each jolt sent the body in front of me flopping. The severed head threatened to leap out like it had a life of its own.

Some village yokel walked beside me. Gangly limbs and gapped teeth. He clutched two shovels in his left hand and did his best to walk just a pace or two behind.

Not for the first time I asked myself: why me?

But I knew the answer sure as I knew my own name. It was because bastards get all the worst jobs.

"Me lord," he said, "haven't we gone far enough?"

I looked up. Around us were the barrows of my ancestors. Tall hills covered in marigolds. And in the distance, you could see the mountain, sticking up over the valley like a sword rammed into the earth.

It wasn't far enough. Down below, I could still see smoke rising from the village. And my father would have a fit if he learned I buried the criminal alongside our forefathers.

A smile spread slowly across my face. "You're right." I stopped abruptly. "Time to dig."

I upended the man out of the cart, head and all, and raised one eyebrow to the yokel.

"Go on then."

He offered me a shovel. I simply looked at him, expression unchanging. It was bad enough my father making me pull the body all this way. Now even this scrawny little villager wanted to tell me what to do.

The grave the man dug was narrow and small, but it was deep enough to kick the body into. I looked down at the crumpled figure and the sightless eyes.

The poor bastard had been tall in life. In death, he looked smaller than me.

His words came back to me then. Screamed out as my father's blade came down. "Curse you fucking all.^[a]"^[b]

I wondered if my last words would be so eloquent.

"Come," I said. "Pile the dirt. I'll fetch some rocks to mark the spot."

When we were done, the grave didn't look too bad, all things considered. A few heavy stones over a dirt pile. "Better than most criminals get, eh?" I said.

The villager nodded enthusiastically.

I sighed. "I'm going to walk back to the castle. You wait ten minutes and then bring the wheelbarrow. Am I understood?"

The villager nodded again, just as enthusiastically. At least he's consistent, I thought.

The way back was much faster. It was downhill, for one, and no scraping wheelbarrow to push either this time. It was almost beautiful, if I didn't know that I was walking back into the lion's maw.

My family's little fort emerged from behind the village huts, atop a small rise^[c]. I passed under the gates. A guardsman saluted me. "Your father wants to see you, my Lord."

"Of course." I sighed.

I would find him where I always found him. In his study, deep in the bowels of the castle.

My half brothers were already there, jostling and teasing each other. "Decided to keep us waiting," said Thomas, the eldest.

"Someone in this family has to do something useful," I bit back.^[d]

Thomas opened his mouth to respond, but our father raised a hand. “No squabbling. Not here.” He eyed us all. Cold eyes, grey eyes. “There’ll be a feast tonight. A toast for the execution. And for the marriage pact.”

“Marriage pact?” James, the youngest.

All eyes fell on Thomas.

My father cleared his throat. “You will be aware that Thomas is no longer a boy. Well, a man must have a wife. And it so happens that Thomas’s wife is to be the Earl of Bolton’s daughter, though not before her father gets a good look at him.^[e] He’s to travel three days hence, with a few trusted guardsmen, to the capital. Once the girl is wooed^[f], he’ll return to us, and the arrangements will be made for the ceremony. With that we’ll have access to the Bolton’s green pastures and tasty little pigs. After that maybe we’ll eat something a little better than stringy pheasant.”

“He’ll be gone for long?” James asked.

“As long as he needs to be. Not that it should matter to you.” He eyed each of us in turn. “Now boys, away with you. Help where you can with the feast.”

I turned to leave but my father called me back. “Not you. We need to have words.”

Dread settled in my stomach. I waited for the others to leave; Thomas raised an eyebrow but otherwise offered no support. ^[g]

My father cracked his knuckles and stretched his legs. Whatever charm he'd used on my mother, he'd since used up.^[h] “You’re not one of us. You’re old enough to know that now. The others are young still, but you’ve grown up fast. You’ve had to. I hope you’ll understand, then, that you can’t stay here any longer.”

“What?”

“Your family have been deposed, either dead or on the run. Your mother’s vanished.^[i] Luckily for you a kindly uncle^[j] has agreed to take you on as his page. Keep you close in case the bloodline looks like it’s running low. It’ll be a decent life for you. You might even enjoy it.” He smiled, but it never touched his eyes. “I’ve begun preparations. Have you gone and on your way before the wedding.”

I did all I could not to scream^[k]. Bit my lip so hard I could taste the iron. “This isn’t fair.”

“And? It wasn’t fair that you got left on my doorstep.” He sighed. “It’s not that I don’t love you. We all bloody do. But you aren’t one of us, and every second you’re here is a reminder to the rest of the world, that not only did I fuck some princess^[l], but I was too scared of her family that I only could meekly face the repercussions. That’s not the image I want to show the world, especially not the good Earl of Bolton.”

“I hate you.”

“Yes, you say that now, but you’ll calm down. Now, go prepare for the feast. And say a proper goodbye to Thomas. It’ll be the last time you see him.”

I screamed my way out onto the hallway, vowing bloody vengeance. I don’t remember much of the rest of the walk from the castle.^[m] I just remember walking and walking, until I found myself far away from the castle^[n] and the town and my goddamn family.

You’d think the forest would’ve calmed me down. Instead I punched the bark off a tree and almost broke my hand.

Cradling it, I walked on, on familiar paths. It got cold quick. I found a rise and pulled my cloak tight. Hadn’t worn enough clothes that night, but my rage was too great to let me return to the castle. Firelight smoked in the great hall, though the rest of the castle was dark. Even from the hillside voices carried, laughter on the wind.

I shivered and shook. I hated them. I’d always hated them. I cursed them and denounced them. I vowed bloody revenge.

I wondered if any of them would miss me.^[o] If Thomas would spare even a single thought and look out over the valley. If my father would fear that I was dead, or whether that would just be another weight off his mind.

A real rattler of a storm swept through the valley that night. It could have killed me. I made a small fire with dry tinder and huddled beneath the back of a tree. Shelter in the valley wasn’t too difficult to find; the land rose and dipped with wild abandon. Thick trees shielded me from the worst of it.

At some point I slept.

Rosy dawn light peered over the ridge of the mountain. I opened my eyes and stretched. Every single joint cracked. Birds played in the treetops and a badger trampled through the undergrowth.

I rubbed some heat into my arms, and, craving the warmth of a feather bed, set off home.

I didn’t have much time to toy over that concept. Home. I was tired and needed food in my belly first. Plodding along, eyes half-closed shut^[p], trying to rub some feeling into my shivering limbs, I didn’t notice it at first.

The valley was quiet.

I heard the birds, and the pigs in their pens, but no people. A part of me would have been amused, but that celebration had not been hosted for me. They could drink themselves to an early grave but I wouldn’t be happy for them.

The castle walls soon loomed over me. The gate was raised. No guards manned the gateway.

I snapped to attention. There was no way my father would not man the gate, no matter how great the celebrations.

If I had a sword, I would have reached for it. Instead, I inched inside.

The main courtyard was still and silent. The only noise came from the stables, where horses shifted and whinnied.

I ran to the double doors, leading to the great hall.

I cannot describe the carnage. Not then, not in all the years since. It would haunt my every nightmare to come. To talk about it, about all of this, is to reopen a wound that never closed.^[q] 

Many would look to this moment and see the man that I became, fashioned in the eyes of a frightened child. I did not become a monster because I found a hall full of dead men. The world doesn’t work like that. ^[r]

I threw up. Mainly from the stench. Picked my way through the bodies of people I’d known my entire life. I did not move fast. I was scared for what I’d find next.

I went first to the rooms of my half-brothers. Each of them dead the same way, collapsed on their beds, headless.

I retched and heaved and spewed little brown chunks until nothing else could come out of me.

My father died the grimmest death.

Gutted, his entrails slipping from his stomach. His head had rolled behind the door.

“No, no,” I said. “No, no, no.”

I backed away, before falling over a body in the hallway. A guard, severed in two. I scraped along the floor, like a panicked spider. The corridors twisted and turned.^[s] I would have closed my eyes, but there were too many corpses underfoot. ^[t][u]

I pelted outside, into the town. The silence was no better. Such stillness. Calm, even with the carnage that lay behind.

I screamed until my lungs^[v] were raw.

The sound of my voice dying brought the silence back. With it came a hollow quiet that stole into my heart. I was absent. Absent of mind, of willpower, of thought.

I walked into the forest, sat on the wormy stump of a tree, and closed my eyes.

My family were dead.

I sobbed into the back of my arms. Try telling yourself you don’t love someone – and then having that person ripped away from you. There’s no comparative experience. You have something, then you don’t. And its absence weighs on you like a stone so heavy you feel your ribs breaking.

There was silence again.

I’d stopped crying. I stared sightless into the woodland as the midday sun filtered through the trees.

Reality settled in as a cold weight on my chest. I was alone. No family. Nothing. And somebody or something had murdered them all.

That brought a sharp red line of anger. A pain in the side of my head. I knew who had done ^[w][x]it. What had done it.

I returned to the scene of my family’s slaughter. I looked at them and swore I’d remember them. Vicious bastards the lot, but they were still my flesh and blood. Part of me wished that it had of been me that tore them to pieces, and that was a lie I let myself believe for a while. I had no other choice. ^[y]

My father’s sword was famous. Not proper famous, but famous enough that I wanted it.

A ruby in the hilt, a thick cross guard wrapped in leather^[z]. A heavy blade, but a well-balanced one.

I fixed the sheath^[aa] around my waist and set off, following cart tracks through the town. The silence still shocked me, but I’d begun to get used to it. There was a prettiness to the valley that there never had been with people cursing and swearing and cluttering up the place.

The track went on for a half hour. I imagined myself with sword in hand, striking left, right^[ab][ac], banishing my foe. Visualisation was a huge part of fighting my master of arms said. I’d visualised fighting my brothers often enough, but the reality had been different.

Not this time, I told myself.

I followed the forest path until we reached the barrows. The shallow grave had not stopped the monster from escaping. It had clawed its way out, leaving smears of blood and bits of skin behind on the rocks.^[ad][ae]

A draugr.

He’d vowed vengeance against my father. And he’d achieved it. That was usually enough for draugr’s, but this one hadn’t returned to the grave. He was out there somewhere.

Free.

I didn’t know his name, nor even the crimes he’d committed. But I’d hunt him. I swore it on God, and my family. I swore it on my father’s sword.