Review #10 - IGLOO BOY (28 septembre 1998)
Source : Cinescape
http://www.cinescape.com/insider/13thwarriorreview.html

"The film ran from 7:34 pm to 9:28 pm, making it a little less than two hours long. This cut was just about right.

Non-spoiler, basic commentary
I went into this screening with an open mind, though I had heard virtually nothing but bad reviews. Those bad reviewers either saw a totally different movie (which may very well be the case), or they are brain-dead. Most of them probably never read the book. 'Tis a shame, because this has got to be THE BEST, most true adaptation of any of Michael Crichton's novels. Of course, the fact that Crichton was a producer, along with John McTiernan, might have had something to do with that. Approximately the first half hour deals strictly with the events leading up to the new title's meaning, virtually none of which is chronicled in the novel to the best of my recollection. It's purpose is simply to explain the title change. Seems like overkill, and it is tedious, with bits of humor thrown in to make it more palatable, but it works for the most part.
"Eaters of the Dead" isn't strictly an apt title either, even when applied to the book. The notion that these characters actually eat dead humans is part of the myth surrounding them, which the Vikings believe. In the movie, it's not made explicitly clear whether or not human flesh is consumed, but one can make the assumption, so they could have stuck with the original title. The change's only purpose was to distance itself from the possible misconception that this would be a horror film. Though there are many elements of suspense and horror in it, it is not a slasher movie. Set in the Middle Ages, it is more of an action/adventure type, with a fair amount of fighting. The title change will confuse avid Crichton readers, but that should be cleared up if they mention the original title and author often enough in the ads. This will be either a PG-13 or an R flick. There are practically no expletives. Violence and gore are basically the only parts that the MPAA could have beef with.

Non-spoiler, semi-historical digression
Some fellow audience members I talked to and overheard complained about the armor in the movie, citing it that it appeared to be 16th and 17th century Spanish armor. It wasn't. The Arabs had various armor, as did the *Romans,* to whose the ones in the movie bore the closest resemblance to. Not much there either, but closer. In addition, some of the Vikings themselves did develop a few pieces here and there and modified what they found in the cultures they encountered. In any case, it's true nitpicking to mess around with where the armor came from, what it was modeled on. It was mostly made of plastic anyway, so what are these wannabe purists moaning about?
There is one major historical connection that is portrayed in the film that I found amusing, even appropriate. One of the twelve Viking warriors was portrayed by David O'Hara, the guy who played the crazy Irishman, Stephen, in BRAVEHEART. "My God thinks he can save me, but you're f***ed!" That guy. He looks almost exactly the same here, beard and moustache, his hair is a dark red (I don't remember if it was in BH). He spoke with his native accent as well. Some of the same people I talked to about the armor also thought this was unbelievable. Well, I submit to you that it is not only believable, but that it probably did happen. The Vikings picked up numerous peoples in their travels, and if I am not mistaken, conquered the British Isles. Duh, where is Ireland? This is what makes me mad sometimes. When this film is released, there will be some movie reviewers all over the country who will note this peculiarity and try to present it in a bad light. Morons. Well, you heard both sides here first.

Semi-spoiler on what you should and should not expect
I have read a few reviews of THE 13TH WARRIOR, and most have expressed disappointment at the mist monsters' true nature. The problem was most likely the fact that these viewers went in expecting a fantasy movie, a la CONAN, one with disgusting creatures and the like. Totally wrong attitude. Remember that this is vintage Crichton, deeply rooted in fact, or at the very least, in the realm of high plausibility. Keep that in mind as you watch the film. The revelation will be subtle, and the absolute confirmation of your suspicions (if they are headed in the right direction) will be visual. Most people will not get it at all. The name could not be mentioned in the film, because it did not exist back then. Far from it. I really enjoyed the way it was handed over to the audience, though I was virtually the only one to laugh out loud at it, it seemed so obvious. Anyway, just so you know, there won't be any magical creatures with a thousand heads or ones that resurrurect in this film. I will reveal the identity of the mist monsters in the spoiler section below (if you don't want to know, don't read the last third), but if you have read the book, you already know.

Spoiler-filled, in-depth story and event summary
I will refer to the actors by their real names, for simplicity's sake.
It starts out with the traditional Crichton text telling us that all this stuff really happened (read practically any of his books, from "Jurassic Park" to "Andromeda Strain" and you'll see), then a long shot of a Viking longboat sailing while the credits roll. Then there's a little narration by Antonio Banderas (who plays the title character, Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan... a ton of other names, but that's what he's usually called), telling how he had his eye on some woman, but she was married to a high-ranking official who had the sultan's ear (possibly the vizier) and so he was sent off as an emissary. So, he's on his way with his entourage, including Omar Sharif as Melchisidek, a senior advisor of some sort. He is the one that speaks a ton of languages. That's weird, I thought the emissary was supposed to. Whatever.
They're going along, their route shown on a parchment map (like in the Indiana Jones trilogy), but the Don and Dniper rivers are marked as such. I wonder if the Arabs called them that way back when. And Europe was marked as Europa (which is what most of the world except America calls it). Again, I doubt that name was applied until much, much later. They end up in the land of the Tartars (that's what Banderas calls them in this narration, though "Tatar" is also correct), in Asia Minor. I don't think they reached that area until the 12th century, so there may be another anachronism there as well. The movie is full of them, not much we can do about that now.
The map fades out completely and shows the caravan traveling through a field. Some scouts report that there is a band of Tartars over one hill, so they veer off. But the Tartars have already noticed them and give chase. It goes on for a minute, where the Arabs head down a steep cliff that leads to a rivershore. After reaching the bottom, they look back up and notice that the Tartars are turning around and heading back. Omar shows Antonio why: there is a Viking ship rounding a bend at the river they just reached. Omar recommends that they too move on, but Antonio goes berserk, wanting to talk to some foreigners, since that's his job. This was a somewhat comical scene.
They walk through the Viking encampment and we are shown a stereotypical scene: debauchery and otherwise unclean activities are taking place. :) Omar and Antonio enter one of the tents, attempting to communicate with the Vikings and locate their leader. Omar tries Greek on a few, without any luck. They find one guy who begins speaking to them in Latin. Whoa. This is the main Viking character, Dennis Storhøi's Herger the Joyous. If you've never seen him before, just imagine Gary Oldman's character in AIR FORCE ONE as blond and long-haired and with more beard and moustache. Very funny guy. Omar asks him where their leader is, their king or emperor. Dennis just laughs and tells them he is in the next tent over. Omar and Antonio begin to move in that direction, but Dennis stops them with "You can't speak with him." (In Latin, of course.) "Why not?" "He's dead," the half-drunk guy laughs. Omar asks who is the heir and Dennis points out two men at the head of a table nearby. One is blond and has no facial hair (unusual for a Viking), the other has brown hair and tons of beard. Everything Dennis says in Latin now is translated on the fly by Omar for Antonio's and our benefit. "One of those men will eventually kill the other to take the dead king's place." They speak for a bit longer, they are offered alcohol, which Antonio tries to refuse (being a devout Muslim), but Omar advises it would probably be taken as an insult. The partying goes on . . .
The next morning, Antonio sees a new ship on the shore. A young boy, no more than ten, stands at the head, motionless. Tony heads into the tent he was in before and finds Omar at one of the tables. He walks over to him, carefully stepping over the sleeping drunks. He tells Omar about the ship and suggests they find out what is going on. There is some talk about why the boy doesn't move or come in. Some of the Vikings are waking up and "washing" up. They pass around a single bowl of water, in which everyone presumably washes their hands and face. Dennis finally recovers from his stupor, washes up and proceeds to blow his nose into it, blocking one nostril at a time, expelling waste from the other into the bowl. He passes it along to Antonio, who takes it delicately and passes it to Omar. Dennis laughs and makes a comment, which Omar translates as "What, don't you Arabs have any concept of *cleanliness?*" He tells them that the boy is a messenger and allowing the camp to determine whether or not he is, in fact, real. It seems they see a lot of mirages in the area. Anyway, the boy eventually does come in and conveys his message to the two leaders, while everyone else listens on.
He tells of a village in which there was much bloodshed. Their king begs help from this group. They agree, so they summon a witch, the shamaness (does that word exist?). She consults "the bones," a common practice in the religions of European pagan cultures. She has a satchel containing the bones, shakes it up, and tosses them out onto the ground. The way, place, and pattern they fall into tells her what to do. She announces that thirteen warriors must go seek the village and find the who, the what. That's the whole point of the story. Dennis explains to the Arabs that there will be one warrior for each moon. Omar takes the time to explain this to Antonio as meaning that the Vikings count the year according to the moon, whose months all have about 28/29 days, so it sort of comes out to 13 months in one lunar year. The blond leader is the first to volunteer, the other does not. One of the Vikings who came with the boy on the new ship, a giant with tattoos on his face and chest, is second. I don't remember the rest, but Dennis volunteers near the end, probably twelvth. Nobody else wishes to raise their hand, possibly because they already had the superstitious belief related to 13. The witch then says that the 13th warrior (tada) "must not be a Norseman." Omar suddenly smiles and tells Antonio that he is to be the 13th. Ouch. No joyride for Antonio in this one. There you have it, the story of why the title was changed from EATERS OF THE DEAD to THE 13TH WARRIOR. Virtually none of this (except the Arabs meeting the Vikings) was actually in the novel.
There is a short scene in which the Vikings place a woman on the ship with the dead king and set it on fire. This horrifies Antonio, naturally. The custom seems quite barbaric to him. The 13 set off by ship after loading their horses and supplies. Seems natural that if the Vikings ran into the Tartars, they would have gotten horses from them, so don't dismiss that as a nonfact. In this case, it seems they had already somewhat bred their horses, since they looked totally like European draft horses (as in the Budweiser ads), they were bloody huge, unlike the Mongolian horses which the Tartars supposedly had. Antonio takes along his Arabian white. The ship sails and it is rough. The big guys are laughing and joking the whole way, Antonio, practically a midget compared to these guys, hangs on for dear life. They go ashore to camp and sleep every day, but in the film, the camping is melted into one scene. This provides for the "learning experience." Folks, this does not happen in real life. If it did, anybody who bothered to concentrate and listen without interacting could learn a language. In the camping scene, Antonio sits somewhat away from the rest of the group, listening to them, trying to understand their strange tongue. I'm fairly sure they were speaking Swedish up until this point (most of the actors were Swedish, so that makes sense). Antonio slowly begins to understand them by watching their body language, when they laughed, when they were serious, when the made hand gestures. From all this, he learned the language. Whatever. The Viking speech slowly transforms into English (which none of these characters should actually be speaking, but you get the idea). This slow transition from the Viking tongue to English signifies Antonio's comprehension of their language. Finally, he and the audience can understand these guys. One of the Vikings was making a joke about something being as ugly as "the Arab's mother." Antonio then answers back in English (Viking): "My mother was beautiful, of noble birth, and at least I know who my father was." This, needless to say, ticks off the guy making the joke, and Dennis explodes, demanding to know how Antonio learned their language. His answer is obvious, since I just told you: "I listened." The blond leader asks Antonio if he can "draw sounds." As the story moves on, you will notice that this guy is maniacal about writing, and for good reason. He asks Antonio to demonstrate, so he writes in the dirt, "There is one God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet."
Cut to the party on board the ship. There is some idle talk, Antonio talks a little about his god, Allah, stuff like that. They suspect they are nearing the coast, probably since they know approximately how long it takes to get there. One of their number blows on a horn, sort of a primitive foghorn (yup, it's foggy, that's why they don't know whether or not land is near), and it echoes, so they are definitely close. Another Viking, their archer, strings a burning arrow and fires. It flies high and far, then plunges into the water and goes out. They wait a bit longer and he repeats the process. This time, it strikes land on some cliff and remains lit, seemingly floating in air. Slowly the land coalesces before their eyes as they near the land. Before they disembark a prayer is said to the Norse gods.
The blond leader is first off the boat and he proceeds to write the sentence Antonio taught him, reads it aloud questioningly to him. Antonio makes a small correction to the scrawl in the sand, nods his head. Dennis makes a comment akin to "Buliwyf is a cautious man [since he is, in effect acknowledging and praying to the Muslim God as well, just to be sure]." That is the blond leader's name, played by Vladimir Kulich. Looks and sounds a lot like "Beowulf", doesn't it? Small wonder. One of the Vikings tosses Antonio a Viking broadsword. He complains, "I can't even lift this thing." "Then grow stronger," Dennis replies. They unload the horses, at which time the Vikings make fun of the Arabian horse, barking at it as if it were a dog (as it was so tiny next to their horses). Antonio takes it calmly, mounts and takes off like the wind, picking up speed and tracing a circle, jumping over successively higher obstacles, mostly fences. This is in an abandoned, partially destroyed, village, btw. The Vikings are now open-mouthed. "The dog can jump. . ."
They gallop off in the direction of the village that asked for their help, reaching it soon after. When they get there, Dennis comments on the absence of protective walls or a moat, and then they see the inhabitants. "Not a single man beteen fifteen and fifty." The thirteen warriors proceed to meet the local leader, an aged Viking, King Hrothgar (Sven Wollter). They screwed his character up, as in this scene, his left eye is mostly shut, making is seem like he has a scar there, or perhaps is missing that eye. In later scenes, the eye is perfectly normal. He's mostly senile, and has a relatively young wife (his second), Queen Weilew (Diane Venora). The warriors are told a bit more of the story, that a mysterious group came recently and killed most of the last able-bodied men of the village. Antonio does not understand this talk, Dennis begins explaining about "mist monsters" and the like. He also talked a little about it way back at the camp where the messenger appeared, but it was inconsequential and vague until now.
Part of the group of warriors, including Antonio and Dennis go out to survey the territory. Sharp-eyed Antonio spies some movement way, way out in the distance, in a field. He points it out to Dennis, and the group rushes out to meet whatever it is. Turns out to be a small boy, less than five years old, unclothed. The Queen came down with them and wraps him in a cloak, telling them she knows the boy, he's from a part of the village in that direction. They head off in the indicated heading and what follows is probably the most gruesome part of the whole film. Gruesome only including blood and flesh. There are a few structures, some badly damaged in the area from whence the boy came. A few of the Vikings venture into one of the houses, only to emerge with grim faces. Dennis and another go in, with the same result. Antonio queries them about what is inside, doesn't get a satifactory reply, so he goes in as well. He is struck by the stench immediately. Flies are buzzing like crazy. That is sure to elicit the desired response from the audience.
Then the image hits us: a human torso hanging from the ceiling, decapitated, dripping blood from various other wounds. There is blood, bits of bodies, and other cadavers strewn all over. Antonio sees a hand sticking out from underneath the covers of a bed, lifts them partially, only to have the amputated hand and wrist fall onto the wooden floor, also oozing with blood. He's had enough. He runs out, kneels, turns away from the audience and begins to vomit. Dennis tells him this is the work of the "mist monster," says some Viking word that is its name, and is immediately hushed by one of the others. It is a forbidden word, as the name of God was with the Hebrews, though obviously in a radically different context. The group seems to know a bit about these creatures, whatever they are, but none had ever seen one. They just knew the modus operandi of the beast. They believed that it ate human flesh. Of course, they are all visibly disturbed by this.
Antonio finds a small, rough statuette here also. It is a woman's torso, with exaggerated breasts. This is the first clue to the identity of the mist monsters. They head back to the king's home and talk to one of the old guys there. He says he's seen one of these monsters, and gives a description, noting that it sometimes seemed to walk on two, sometimes four legs. This is important later on. Vladimir decides that the few remaining people of the village should stay in the underground cellar built beneath the king's residence (it would be flattery for me to call it a palace). Sven (King Hrothgar) tells them that he will not hide from the enemy, he wants to stay outside and fight. Vladimir gently convinces him to go below, saying that he will be among "their last line of defense." This was for slight comedic effect, in case you missed it.
Night arrives, and we see the thirteen lying down in a circle (sounds a bit like the Round Table). They all have armor on, their swords and daggers lying next to them. Most are sleeping soundly, snoring even. Antonio is having a bit of trouble getting himself into a state of unconsciousness. He keeps fidgeting and looking around apprehensively. He then hears a noise, looks over at Dennis, who has awakened and heard it too. He gets a nod of acknowledgement. The rest wake up, and silently draw their blades. They hear footsteps and strange breathing sounds. Suddenly, the doors and windows are thrown open or crashed through and the battle begins.
Throughout the scene, it is fairly dark, so it is difficult to see the creatures. This is their first appearance, about one hour into the film, I think. I won't go into the details of the fight, except for that Antonio manages to kill one of the beasts, gets a fairly good look at it, and then is promptly taken out of action, knocked unconscious and partially hidden behind some barrels. The others fight on, one gets killed, they kill several more creatures, and eventually the mist monsters are driven off. We see one of them cut off the dead Viking's head. It had a furry hand with huge claws, as the old man had described earlier. We also see the dead monsters being picked up by their comrades and carried off. After they leave, the Vikings light a few torches and search for their two missing men and any carcasses. The decapitated body is found, as well as Antonio, just regaining consciousness. One of the Vikings says, "Hey, the Arab didn't run away!" The rest laugh. Antonio has a few cuts and bruises but is otherwise fine. They discover that while they were fighting inside, the ship they came in was basically burned to ashes. The search for the creatures' bodies comes up empty, even though all are sure that several were, in fact, killed. The plot thickens.
The next day they set to work on building some defenses. They dig trenches (shoveling turns out to be too slow, Antonio introduces them to the plow). They cut stakes with their broadswords, but it required two strokes at two different angles. This annoyed Antonio, who was unskilled at the use of the heavy sword, so he went to the local metalworker and made himself an Arabian-style sword (as in "Damascus steel"), lighter, stronger, and curved. With it, it only took one slash to cut the wood to make a sharp point.
Later, some "reinforcements" arrive. The king's son (by his first wife), Wigliff (played by Anders T. Anderson), returns with a few men. Work stops to welcome them with a feast. He and Vladimir get into a little argument at the table while eating with the king, Anders and his guys storm to eat elswhere. Vladimir decides with some of his men that one of the Prince's men should be killed somehow to teach them a lesson. Dennis volunteers and suggests the red-haired giant (not the Irishman) as the target. Vladimir agrees. So, during their work, Dennis shovels some dirt onto the guy's back. "Watch where you're throwing that!" Shrug from Dennis. "You dig like a dog!" "Did you call me a dog?" "No, you're not listening." "So, now you're calling me deaf?" The giant calms Dennis' fake anger and they go back to work. Then he does it again, only with a bigger pile than before. Giant says something about Dennis being an animal. Dennis throws down the gaunlet, so to speak. They are now on a field, each with holding a sword, three shields at his feet. Dennis tests his shields, picks one. Antonio is skeptical about Dennis' chances. "Did you notice he's just a little bit bigger than you?" The giant is at least a foot and a half above Dennis. "Sure," Dennis smiles. They clank the broad side of their swords against their own shields three times to signify they are ready, and they begin. The giant quickly knocks Dennis down and cracks part of his shield off. Dennis gets back up, makes a funny face, picks out his next shield, and they start over. Pretty much the same thing happens this time around. Dennis goes back and gets his last shield, which also breaks under the giant's mighty blows. He throws it aside and leans on his sword, hilt up. He looks tired. Antonio paces back and forth and mutters "He's going to get himself killed" to Vladimir, who smiles. The giant eyes Dennis for a second, leans down some, then rushes him, intending to run him through. Dennis deftly steps to his right and chops the giant's head off with one clean stroke just as he sails by. Antonio is astonished, to say the least. The Prince gets fairly mad and takes off with the rest of his gang.
Antonio is riding out to bring some food to the watchman positioned in, what else, a watch tower (sometimes called a tree). It is cloudy and Antonio hears thunder and comments that it might rain. The lookout laughs and tells him that what he hears are the "Thunder Cliffs," against which waves crash so that it sounds like thunder. Antonio also sees a flock of sheep grazing in a pasture not too far off, their shepherd with them but she seems to be sleeping. He ignores her, as they see mist forming in the hills around the village. See, the monsters like to attack at twilight or night when there is mist. If a night doesn't have mist, they don't come, which is why they are called mist monsters.
Later that night, a long string of orange-yellow light appears over a hill and begins to snake down the hillside. Antonio and Dennis see it and alert the others. Dennis informs Antonio that this is the "glow-worm." Another monster. Just what everybody needed. Antonio watches it and then sees the shepherd he noticed earlier. She is still outside. Awake now, and running toward the village. At the main gate they erected, they had positioned stakes that stuck up at an angle, so it would be almost impossible to enter without scaling the walls. The stakes are tied in such a way that it would take several precious minutes to undo them to allow someone to exit to rescue the girl. Antonio gets on his Arabian white and hops the barrier, gallops out past the girl. Meanwhile, the barrier is being taken down. Antonio rides out close enough to inspect the "glow-worm," it turns out to be the same things that attacked before (though he still doesn't see them quite well just yet), only on horseback and carrying torches. Takes all the mystery of the myth away. He turns around, picks up the girl and goes through the now-open entrance. They begin reassembling it immediately as he tells them the truth about the "glow-worm." Not that they have time to worry about it. The monsters-on-horses arrive quickly and commence the attack. This battle is much longer and I won't go into details here either. A couple more of the Viking-Twelve get killed, as well as tons of the monsters. They retreat, taking as many of their dead and heads as they can with them.
Next day, the Vikings survey the damage and manage to find a body. It is only shown briefly and the Vikings are mystified by it. It has the head and paws of a bear, but inside the bear head and the rest, is fairly human. He is covered in blue body paint, which is unfamiliar to the Vikings. Antonio assures them that is it human, he noticed that before, when he was fighting one the other day. This bear costume is your second clue. Now they ponder what they should do next. Should they wait for them to attack again or shall they attempt to track them? They decide to consult the witch. It may or may not have been the same one who sent them on the quest in the first place, I couldn't tell for sure. Vladimir asks her what they should do and she requests something "of their person" or something like that, meaning one of their personal effects. Antonio offers the statue he had found at the killing site they had visited. She examines it and tells them to go after the enemy, and when they find them, kill "the mother and the son." When asked where they should look, she replies, "In the earth." They take their leave and mount their horses, Antonio complaining about the witch's vagueness. Dennis laughs it off and explains that is usually the way and they have to make do. The group starts following the horse tracks left by the horde, and one of them comments about how easy the trail is to see, "A baby could follow this." They go over some hills and reach a pass, through which they see a valley, with a river, waterfalls, a bridge, and tons of our buddies, the "mist monsters." Antonio is still puzzling over the "in the earth" part of the witch's advice and then he spots caves in the hill, the bridge ends at one of their mouths. He points these out to the others and they too understand. This is the third clue. The group decides to wait until dark to descend.
It is now twilight, and they reach the bridge. There is one guard, who is promptly killed. They all go into the cave with torches lit. Antonio notices irregularities on the cave walls and holds his torch aloft, so as to illuminate them. They are pictures of animals: rhinoceros, bear, and wooly mammoth among others. Those are the ones I caught. This is basically the fourth and last clue to the identity of these mist monsters. This was the part where it dawned on me (It's been quite a while since I read the book, so I had forgotten this. Strangely, I remember other more minor points of the novel.). These guys are Neanderthals. Cave men, if you will. Let that sink in.
They go into the series of caves, eventually reaching a large cavern practially overflowing with human bones. The two most striking features of the place though, are the stacks and stacks of of human skulls surrounding the huge version of the female torso that Antonio found. This female torso, btw, was a common fertility goddess among primitive peoples, for obvious reasons. Next, they entered another cavern full of half-sleeping Neanderthals. They sneak through, moving on. They eventually reach the end of the network, a cliff. Across from and below it is an isolated cave, well-protected from attack. The only way to reach it from their position was to swing to their right into the waterfall and land on the rocks behind it, then climb down into the water and swim across. They do so one at a time, Vladimir being first and Antonio and Dennis last.
Until now, Dennis had been spouting Viking proverbs where appropriate (such as the one "Grow stronger" in reference to the heavy sword earlier), and Antonio had understood their meanings up until now. Here, Antonio is hesitant to swing across and tells Dennis, "I am not fond of heights." Dennis answers with yet another proverb. It's a shame I can't remember it, but it was something like this. "The golden eagle with one talon flies just as well." Again, that is definitely way off, but it doesn't mean much, right? Antonio ponders this one for a moment and then states the obvious, "I do not understand it. What does it mean?" "Absolutely nothing." And Dennis shoves him off, sending him across. Antonio makes a sound as he hits the rock, attracting the attention of the huge group of Neanderthals across the way, but only momentarily.
Dennis makes it across ok, and they all quietly swim to the opposite side, swords in hand, daggers in mouths. They ambush the hapless primitives, killing number of them immediately. They battle on, and Vladimir notices that there is a semi-hidden passage to one side. He goes in after receiving acknowledgement from his lieutenants. We can now only watch him, cautiously edging his way into the darkness. Then we see three women in front of him, all painted and wearing bone jewelry. First the left one attacks, jumping at him. He cuts her down quickly, followed by the one on the right. The center one eyes him for a bit, then suddenly jumps at him, ending up on his sword. They are now face-to-face, inches apart. She lets out a quiet laugh as she dies. She was "the mother" the witch spoke of. He leaves and rejoins the rest of the group. They have killed or driven off the savages that were in that cave. They notice he is wounded in several places, he is clutching his side in pain. Dennis examines him and pulls something out from his right abdomen. It is a human tooth, from the jewelry "the mother" was wearing. He sniffs, it. "Poison." No, Vladimir doesn't die just yet, we're not so advanced that we have quick-acting toxins in common use.
They find a tunnel that may lead out of there, as they decide it would be too difficult to exit the way they came, now that they had caused such a stir. They could only hope that the tunnel they found would lead out. They start down that way, one of them gets left behind. He is mortally wounded and cannot go on; he tells them that he will take "a few of those painted" beasts with him. The rest press on and reach a dead end. Now they wonder what to do, they decide that they'll make their last stand here, two fighting at a time in the narrow passage, switching off. Antonio notices he can hear thunder . . . or does he? "The Thunder Cliffs! We can get out this way!" There is a pool of water next to them, but they aren't sure if they can make it. They decide to chance it, it's better than duking it out with the huge army that was soon to be upon them. They all jump in and swim for their lives. It turns out that it was an escape route, Antonio is the last to emerge from the water, helped out by Dennis. The remainder of the group heads back home.
Finally back at the village, Vladimir is on his deathbed the next morning. He tells his men that he regrets he will not be remembered as a great king among his people. "I hope though, that my deeds will have been enough so that someone may deem them worthy to be written down." He is, of course, asking that Antonio commit this entire adventure to writing. Antonio replies with something in the affirmative, like "They are indeed."
There is some commotion outside and those who still can, run out to see what is going on. Another army is here, clothed in bearskins and on horseback. It is not night, the usual time for these attacks. Dennis and Antonio look at each other and it dawns on them. "We didn't kill the son." They gather the men and prepare for battle once again. All stand at the ready, waiting for the enemy to arrive. They are all downcast. "How I wish Buliwyf were here with us." Just then, he staggers out from the building, holding his sword still. Morale is immediately high, and soars as he leads them in the traditional prayer. It might be in the book, I can't remember. It was the same prayer that was said during the funeral near the beginning (I know this, because Omar translated for us). Now, even Antonio knows the words.
The battle begins as they finish, and in this one, it gets bloody. Every Neanderthal who is cut down, goes down in a shower of blood. One Neanderthal on horseback goes for Vladimir, and you instinctively know this is "the son." They fight and Vladimir slays him. I think he was the only one he actually fought. After killing him, he drunkenly walks over to King Hrothgar's vacant throne (just a regular, if not large, chair), thrusts his sword into the ground to his right as he sits down, and is still. The battle rages on around him. Finally, the Neanderthals notice their fearless leader is dead, so they flee. The Vikings cheer. The few that are still alive walk over to Vladimir, then slow down, and finally stop. He is dead, eyes open as in life. Fade to a funeral, Antonio carrying the right front of the board upon which Vladimir's body lay. This is shown just fleetingly, though the book pretty much ends here (On to the appendix!).
There are more flash-bys of the group rebuilding their ship, Antonio with a Viking woman he was previously seen with (minor plot point), and finally the ship is complete. The group that is left prepares to leave, Antonio bids his lady farewell, and he and Dennis head towards the ship where the others are waiting. Dennis stops and Antonio asks him why. "I've decided to stay here for a while. The hunting is good this time of year." Just then, a woman calls over to him, "Herger, you will do the dishes, right?" Or something like that. "Hunting, eh?" "Yes, hunting." They laugh and Antonio boards the longboat, they embark. Dennis and Antonio wave to each other. The ship is shown sailing for a bit. Voice-over by Antonio, speaking the closing words he is writing as an old man (this is shown) to this remarkable adventure.
Cut to Viking longboat sailing off into the distance. THE END."