Chapter 13: The Watch Still Ticks
The world reassembled itself piece by painful piece. First was the sound: a wet, sputtering crackle of green wood on fire. Then the smell: roasting meat, yes, but under it, the reek of unwashed bodies, brine, and the iron tang of blood—his own blood, he realized, seeping through the rough wrap on his chest. Cold bit into his back from a rough-hewn timber post. His arms were wrenched behind him, bound at the wrists with a coarse, chafing rope.Kenji’s eyes snapped open.
He was in a long, high-ceilinged hall.Smoke hung in a greasy layer beneath the rafters, stinging his eyes. Shadows leaped and cavorted along log walls hung with faded, stained tapestries and dented shields. Men—dozens of them—sat on benches or sprawled on furs, their faces hard in the firelight, their laughter a blunt, barking thing. Across the central hearth, directly in front of him, Olaf sat on a carved chair draped in wolf pelts.
He was toying with the pocket watch.
The cracked crystal caught the firelight, throwing tiny, dancing stars onto Olaf’s thick fingers. He held it up to his ear, frowned, shook it, then held it to his ear again.The scene had a nightmarish clarity. The raging wound in Kenji’s back was now a deep, sickening throb, a furnace buried in his muscles. The bandage—it looked like filthy, torn sailcloth—was tight and clumsy, but it had staunched the flow.He was alive. The fact filled him not with relief, but with a cold, swallowing dread.Olaf noticed his gaze.A slow, ugly smile spread across his face. He pushed himself up from his chair and ambled over, his boots kicking up ash from the hearthstones.He stopped just out of kicking range, if Kenji had been able to kick. The giant warrior’s eyes, the color of a winter fjord, appraised him without warmth.
“Eyes open, then,” Olaf rumbled. His voice was like gravel shifting in a bucket.“Good. The old man back in the village, the one who stinks of rot and whispers, he said this…” He dangled the watch by its broken leather strap, letting it spin slowly.“…this talisman holds your spirit.Keeps it tied to your flesh. Interesting notion.” He leaned in closer, and Kenji caught the sour stench of stale ale and old meat on his breath.“So I figured I’d keep it.And you. At least until I learn what you’re actually worth.”
Kenji’s mouth was parched, his tongue a dry lump.He tried to speak, managed a dusty croak. “It’s… not magic.It’s just a watch. A timepiece.”
Olaf snorted, a sharp, dismissive sound.“A timepiece,” he repeated, mocking the foreign word. “It ticks without wind, without sun, without water.It has tiny moving teeth inside. I’ve seen a water clock in Hedeby. This is not that.” He pocketed the watch inside his tunic, patting the spot over his heart.“It’s spirit-magic. Or something close. And you…” He reached out, not touching Kenji’s face, but gesturing to his eyes.“Red as new-spilled blood. I’ve heard tales from the Rus lands of men with wolf-eyes, see in the dark, taste fear.Is that your worth? A seeing-trick? A fighting-demon?”
The absurdity of it, mixed with the paralyzing fear and the blistering pain, almost made Kenji laugh. A hysterical bubble rose in his throat.He was a biology student from Tokyo.He needed ibuprofen and an MRI. They thought he was a mystical seeing-eye dog.
“No tricks,” Kenji said, forcing the words out, trying to keep his voice level.“Just an accident.A… flaw. In my blood.” It was the simplest truth he could offer that might make sense to them.A flaw. A curse, even.Olaf studied him, the calculating look of a man assessing livestock. “Flaw or fortune, it makes you distinctive.Distinctive things have value. To the right buyer.” He straightened up, turning to address the room.His men had fallen quiet, watching the exchange with keen interest. “Bjorn Ironside valued him.Enough to fight for him on the shingle. Enough that his mute shadow wept like a child when we thought him dead.” A few rough chuckles echoed in the hall.“That giant, Ragnar, he’ll be coming.Bjorn too. A man who inspires that kind of loyalty… or obsession… is a lever. And a lever can move the world.”
Kenji’s stomach turned to ice. He wasn’t a person to them.He was a tool.A curiosity.A bargaining chip.
“They’ll kill you,” Kenji said, the ice translating into a sudden, flat clarity. “They won’t barter. They’ll just come and kill every one of you.” He thought of Ragnar’s face, the sheer tectonic grief, and knew it was true. Bjorn’s cold, focused rage.There would be no negotiation.
Olaf’s smile returned, wider this time, revealing a missing molar.“Let them come.This nest is built on rock. The path up is narrow as a man’s shoulders. They’ll break their teeth here.” He gestured vaguely toward the hall’s shuttered windows. A howl, not of wind but of a true gale, underscored his words.“And the storm is my ally tonight. Even Ironside isn’t fool enough to sail into this.”
He turned to a barrel-chested man stirring a massive iron pot over a secondary fire.“Erik.Feed our guest.Keep him alive. He’s no good to us as a corpse.”
Erik, a man with forearms thick as ham hocks and a beard matted with grease, grunted. He ladled a portion of thick, lumpy stew into a wooden bowl and stomped over.He didn’t untie Kenji. Instead, he yanked a a Kenji’s head back by the hair and brought the bowl to his lips.The stew was scalding, fatty, full of unidentifiable chunks. It tasted of salt and game and dirt. Kenji choked, sputtered, but swallowed, the heat spreading a false vitality through his frozen core. Erik forced another few mouthfuls down before dumping the remainder unceremoniously over Kenji’s head, the hot broth soaking his hair and tunic.
The hall erupted in laughter.Erik grinned, wiping his hands on his breeches before returning to his pot.
Kenji hung his head, the stew dripping from his chin, humiliation a hotter burn than the wound. He focused on the rope, testing its give.It was tight, professionally so. His fingers, cold and clumsy, found no purchase, no loose knot.He was trapped. And the one artifact that connected him to a world of logic, of medicine, of comfort, was tucked into the tunic of a man who saw it as a magical battery for his soul.
The hours bled together, measured only by the deepening of the storm’s voice. The wind screamed against the thatch, finding gaps to whistle through, carrying stinging needles of sleet. The men drank iiideeply from horns and leather tankards, their games growing louder, more physical. Dice were thrown, arm-wrestling matches began and ended with slammed fists and shouted curses.Through slitted eyes, Kenji watched them. Their violence was casual, a part of the fabric of their lives, like breathing. He saw a man pin another for a lost bet, not in anger, but in boisterous celebration, the loser’s face pushed into the rushes beside a dog that barely lifted its head.
He must have drifted, because the next thing he knew, a different sound cut through the rumble of male noise. A higher voice, sharp with impatience.
“—a squall in a cup, Olaf. You’ve stolen a sunbeam and now you’re afraid it’ll burn your house down.”
Kenji forced his head up.
A woman stood just inside the main doors, shaking rain from a cloak of sleek otter fur. She pushed back her hood, revealing a tumble of red hair, braided and beaded, and eyes the fierce green of storm-tossed seas. Isis. Her gaze swept the hall with disdain, settling briefly, curiously, on Kenji, before locking onto Olaf.
Olaf, who had been leaning over a gaming table, straightened, his expression souring.“Isis.Your father’s hall is a day’s sail south. Has the storm blown you off course, or just blown your sense away?”
She strode forward, her movements sure, ignoring the leering and muttered comments from the benches. She carried the authority of someone used to being listened to, or at least, being stared at without consequence. Her gaze flicked to Kenji again, taking in his bound state, the soiled bandage, the stew drying in his hair.Something unreadable flashed in her eyes.
“I heard a rumor,” she said, stopping before Olaf, hands on her hips. Her leathers were finely tooled, her thigh daggers sheathed in polished wood and bronze.“That you took something from Bjorn. Something that wasn’t yours. I came to see if the rumor was as stupid as the man who spawned it.”
Olaf’s face darkened.“I took spoils from a battle. That is the way of things. Or have your father’s lands made you soft?”
“The only thing making me soft is listening to you grunt,” she shot back, a smirk touching her lips. “Bjorn Ironside is not some fat merchant from Gotland. He is a wasp.You’ve just kicked his nest. And you stole his favorite flower.” She nodded toward Kenji.“Why?For the boy? He’s pretty, I’ll give you that. And those eyes… But is he worth a war?”
“He has a value,” Olaf said guardedly.“To whom?The Northern King doesn’t collect exotic pets. And any skald who tries to make a song about ‘Olaf the Red-Eye Stealer’ will die of laughter before the first verse ends.” Her tone was light, almost teasing, but her eyes were scanning the hall, counting men, assessing.
“His value is to Bjorn,” Olaf insisted, a vein ticking in his temple.“And to his silent dog. That is leverage.”
Isis threw her head back and laughed, a rich, ringing sound that somehow silenced the grumbling in the hall. “Leverage? Olaf, you great oaf, you’ve confused a lever with a coffin nail.They aren’t coming to trade. They’re coming to pry you out of this cliff like a rotten tooth and feed you to the crabs.You haven’t captured an asset. You’ve given them a reason to make your death a personal art.”
She walked over to Kenji, kneeling in the rushes before him. She studied his face with an unnerving, scientific curiosity. Up close, he could see the faint dusting of freckles across her nose, the slight chapping on her lips from the sea wind. She smelled of rain, leather, and a faint, wild herb.
“Hello, time-traveler,” she said softly, so only he could hear.Kenji’s heart seized.How?
She smiled, as if reading his confusion. “A lucky guess from a story Bjorn once told me when he was deep in his cups. A man who fell from the sky, spoke strangely, and carried a little silver moon that ate time.” Her green eyes held his red ones. “He never said you had wolf-eyes, though. That’s a nice touch.”
“Help me,” Kenji whispered, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
Her smile didn’t waver, but it cooled a few degrees.“Help is a transaction. What do you offer?”
Before he could formulate a desperate, impossible answer, Olaf’s heavy hand landed on Isis’s shoulder.“Enough. Your taunts are wearing thin.You came for a look?You’ve looked. The storm is still here.You can stay the night.Or you can leave. But the boy stays with me.”
Isis rose smoothly, shrugging off his hand.“I’ll stay. Your hospitality is… memorable.” Her gaze swept over the grimy hall once more. “I’ll take a corner. Away from the snoring.”
As the night deepened, the hall settled into a drunken stupor.Men slumped over tables, snored in furs. The central fire burned low to embers. Kenji, exhausted, pain throbbing in a relentless wave, finally let his head sag against the post. He watched through heavy lids as Isis, in her chosen corner, unrolled a thin sleeping mat.She didn’t look at him again.
Hope, a fragile, stupid thing, had flickered for a moment.Now it guttered out. She was just another player in this brutal game, sizing up the board.
He must have truly slept this time, because the touch that woke him was feather-light, a pressure on his leg. He jerked, a gasp catching in his throat.Isis crouched before him, a finger to her lips. Her eyes glittered in the near-darkness. The only light came from the dying hearth and a single, guttering torch by the door.The snores around them were a gale to match the one outside.
She didn’t speak.With swift, precise movements, she drew one of her thigh daggers. The blade was a sliver of darkness.Kenji’s breath hitched.Was this it? A quiet end?But she shifted behind him. He felt the heat of her body close to his back, heard the minute snick of the razor-sharp edge sawing through the rope. The fibers parted with a quiet sigh. His arms, stiff and bloodless, fell to his sides with a painful rush of pins and needles.He almost cried out from the sheer, shocking relief.
She was back in front of him in an instant, her face inches from his.She smelled of the night itself. “Can you walk?” she breathed, the words barely audible.
Kenji nodded, though he wasn’t sure.The wound in his back screamed a protest at the very thought.
Isis’s eyes narrowed, assessing his doubt. She reached into a pouch at her belt and pulled out a small, wrinkled leaf.“Chew this.Now. Don’t swallow it, just chew.”
Too desperate to question, he took it, shoved it into his mouth. It was unbearably bitter, a taste that seemed to scrape his tongue clean and shoot straight into his skull. A moment later, a strange, cold clarity washed over him. The pain didn’t vanish, but it receded, becoming a distant, manageable thrum. His exhaustion lifted, replaced by a jittery, focused energy.“What is that?” he whispered, amazed.
“Focus,” she countered, ignoring the question. She glanced toward the main doors, then back to a smaller, lesser door near the rear of the hall, used for slops and waste.“That way. It’s barred from the inside.I’ll open it.Once outside, go left. There’s a path, a goat track, down the cliff face.It’s treacherous. It’s suicidal in this weather. But it’s the only way they won’t expect.”
“Why?” Kenji asked, the single word holding a world of confusion.Her gaze was flinty. “Because Bjorn is a stubborn, magnificent bastard.And I owed him one. Also,” she added, a wicked glint returning, “because watching Olaf’s face when he finds you gone will be the best entertainment I’ve had in months. Now, move.”
She helped him to his feet.The world swayed, but the bitter leaf held him upright. Together, they moved like ghosts through the forest of sleeping men, stepping over outstretched legs, avoiding pools of spilled ale. The smell of the place—sweat, smoke, sour mead—seemed to intensify, a prison he was about to break.They reached the small door. Isis slid a heavy iron bar aside with only the faintest groan of metal. She cracked the door open, and the storm rushed in, a blast of wet, freezing air that stole Kenji’s breath. Night and raging weather greeted them, absolute and violent.
She looked at him one last time, her red hair whipping across her face. “The path clings to the rock like a spider’s thread.Feel for it with your feet. Don’t look down.”
And then she gave him a firm push out into the tempest.
The door shut silently behind him, plunging him into pure, howling chaos. The rain was horizontal, ice-cold needles that felt like they would flay his skin. The wind tried to pluck him from the ledge and hurl him into the void. Below, invisible in the blackness, he heard the ocean roaring, a monster chewing at the base of the cliff.He was out.He was free. And he was on a mountainside, in a hurricane, with a sucking chest wound and no idea which way was left.
He pressed his body against the cold, wet stone of the longhouse, the rough wood digging into his shoulders. He focused on the feel of it, an anchor.Left. He inched along, his hands scrabbling for purchase, his feet sliding on the muddy, sodden ground.
After an eternity of groping blindness, his foot met not mud, but a different texture—rock, worn slightly smoother, a narrow shelf that disappeared around an outcrop.The goat track.
A choice hung in the storm before him. Down this unknown, terrifying path into the raging dark, or back to the barred door, to captivity, to being a thing of value.
Kenji Tanaka, who missed his quiet Tokyo apartment, his textbooks, the electric hum of his laptop, took a deep, shuddering breath of freezing sea air. He thought of Ragnar’s grief, of Bjorn’s calculating stare, of the pocket watch ticking in Olaf’s tunic. He thought of home, a concept that now felt vaguer than the cliff edge in front of him.
He chose the spider’s thread.
Placing one foot on the narrow ledge, he began to descend into the roaring blackness, the wind’s scream now his only companion.