In the morning, stiff and cold, men moved sullenly in our camp on the hill, hidden in trees where the mist shredded and swirled. I was gathering my sea-chest together when Styrbjorn came up, with men behind him. Everything stopped.
‘We have been talking among ourselves,’ Styrbjorn said. Finn growled and men shifted uncomfortably. I said nothing, waiting and sick, for I had been expecting this.
‘It seems to us,’ he went on, ‘that there is nothing to be gained by continuing in this way and a great deal to be lost.’
‘There is a deal to be lost, for sure,’ I answered, straightening and trying to be light and soft in my voice, for the anger trembled in me. ‘For those who break their Oath and abandon their oarmates. Believe me, Styrbjorn, I have seen it.’
The men behind him shifted slightly, remembering that they had sworn the Oath, but Styrbjorn had not. One scowler called Eid cleared his throat, almost apologetically, and said that when they had held a Thing, as was right for
bondi
to do when they thought I was dead, it was generally understood that whoever was chosen would lead them home.
Men hoomed and nodded; I saw no more than a handful, all from Crowbone’s old crew of
Short Serpent
and that, while Styrbjorn stood with his arms folded, pouting like a mating pigeon, it was to Alyosha that these men flicked their uneasy eyes.
‘Now I am returned and there is no need for such decisions,’ I said, though I knew it would not silence them.
‘If I had been chosen,’ Crowbone added defiantly, ‘we would still be after the boy.’
Eid snorted. ‘You? The only reason any of us are here at all is because Alyosha was sensibly tasked by Prince Vladimir to keep you out of trouble after he gave you the toy of a boat and men. If anyone leads here, it is Alyosha.’
Crowbone stiffened and flushed, but held himself in check, which was deep-thinking; if he started to get angry, his fragile voice would squeak like a boy. Styrbjorn, on the other hand, started turning red, though the lines round his mouth went white as he glared at Eid; he did not like this talk of Alyosha leading.
‘Prince Vladimir gave
Short Serpent
to ME,’ Crowbone answered his crew, sinking his chin into his chest to make his voice deeper. ‘He gave YOU to me.’
‘No-one gave me anywhere,’ growled Eid, scowling. ‘What am I – a horn spoon to be borrowed? A whetstone to be lent?’
‘A toy, perhaps,’ grunted Finn, grinning and Eid wanted to snarl at him, but was not brave enough, so he subsided like a pricked bladder, muttering.
Alyosha, markedly, stayed stone-grim and silent, with a face as blank as a fjord cliff, while Styrbjorn opened and closed his mouth, the words in him crowding like men scrambling off a burning boat, so that they blocked his throat.
‘And there is the girl,’ added a voice, just as I thought I had the grip of this thistle. Hjalti, who was named Svalr – Cold Wind – because of his miserable nature, had a bald pate with a fringe of hair which he never cut, but burned off and never got it even. He had an expression that looked as if he was always squinting into the sun and a tongue which could cut old leather.
‘The girl is another matter,’ I answered. Styrbjorn recovered himself enough to smile viciously.
‘A sweetness we have all missed,’ he replied, ‘save you, it seems.’
I shot Ospak a hard look and he had the grace to shrug and look away, acknowledging his loose tongue and what he had seen and heard by the Magyar fires.
‘Am I a chattel, then?’ said a new voice and I did not have to turn to know it; Dark Eye stepped into the centre of the
maelstrom
, a hare surrounded by growlers. ‘A thrall, to be passed around? A horn spoon or a whetstone, as Eid says?’
No-one spoke under the lash of those eyes and that voice. Dark Eye, wrapping her cloak around her, cocked a proud chin.
‘I have a purpose here. The Sea-Finn’s drum spoke it and those who have heard it know its truth,’ she spat, then stopped and shrugged.
‘Of course,’ she added slyly, ‘if all it takes for such hard men to seek Jarl Orm’s
fostri
is a sight of my arse-cheeks, I will lift my skirts and lead the way.’
There was a chuckle or two at that and Styrbjorn opened his mouth. Dark Eye whirled on him.
‘You had all best move swiftly and catch me first,’ she said loudly, ‘for Styrbjorn is skilled at stabbing from behind.’
Now there was laughter and Styrbjorn turned this way and that, scowling, but it was too late – men remembered him for the sleekit nithing he was and that he had been the cause of all this in the first place. For all that, like a dog with a stripped bone, some still thought there was enough meat to gnaw.
‘This chase is madness.’
His name was Thorbrand, I remembered, a man who knew all the games of dice and was skilled with a spear.
‘Ach, no, it is not,’ Red Njal offered cheerfully. ‘Now, mark you, mad is where you chase a band of dead-eaters, who chase a thief, who is chasing a monk, and all in the Muspell-burning wastes of Serkland. That is mad, Thorbrand.’
‘Aye, madness that is, for sure,’ agreed Thorbrand. ‘What fool did that?’
Finn grinned at him and slapped his chest. ‘Me. And Orm and Red Njal and a few others besides.’
He broke off and winked.
‘And we came away with armfuls of silver at the end of it. The best fruits hang highest, as Red Njal’s granny would no doubt have told him.’
Styrbjorn snorted.
‘That sounds like one of the tales Red Njal likes so much. Is it written down anywhere? I am sure it must be, since it smacks of a great lie.’
‘As to that,’ Finn said, moving slowly, ‘I could not say, for reading other than runes is not one of my skills. But I can hear, even with just the one ear and I am sure you just called me a great liar.’
The world went still; even the birdsong stopped. I stepped into the silence of it.
‘There is only one safe way to stop heading the way I am steering you,’ I rasped, feeling my bowels dissolve, ‘and that is for one of you to become jarl. And there is only one way for that to happen – what say you, Styrbjorn? You will also have to take the Oath you have so far managed to avoid.’
There was a silence, a few heartbeats, no more, where Styrbjorn licked his drying lips and fought to rise to the challenge, even though his bowels were melting faster than mine. I relied on it; I knew how Styrbjorn liked to fight and it was not from the front.
It stretched, that silence, like the linden-bast rope that had held
Short Serpent
to the bank and the fear-heat spurted from it like water.
Just before it broke, Kuritsa loped up and parted it with a slicing sentence.
‘Fight later – men are running for their lives and one of them is Randr Sterki.’
They were running like sheep, all in the same direction but only because they blindly followed a leader; the water sluiced from under their feet and their laden drag-poles were flung to one side.
‘They will never get away,’ Abjorn grunted, pointing. He had no need to; we could all see the horsemen, big as distant dogs now and closing.
‘They are heading right towards us,’ Red Njal said, his voice alarmed.
Of course they were – Randr Sterki was no fool and he saw high ground with trees on top, knew if he reached it the horsemen would be easier to fight if they decided to charge in and, if they balked at that, the trees would provide cover from the arrows.
‘Form up – loose and hidden,’ I ordered, peering out, searching for what I had not yet been able to see.
‘We are going to rescue Randr Sterki?’ demanded Styrbjorn incredulously. ‘After all he has put us through? Let him die out there.’
Finn spat, just missing Styrbjorn’s scuffed, water-stained boots.
‘
Fud
brain,’ he growled. ‘The boy is there.’
Styrbjorn, who had forgotten why we were here at all, scowled, while Alyosha and Abjorn slid away to give orders; men filtered forward into the trees, half-crouched, tightening helmet ties, settling shields.
‘Randr Sterki will not thank us, all the same,’ muttered Red Njal; I had been thinking the same myself and thought to leap that stream when we were near falling in it.
There – two figures, one half-falling, slower than the rest, stumbling. The taller one, black, stopped, hauled the little one up into his arms and half-staggered, half-ran to keep up; I could hear the rasp of his breathing from here, but I was puzzled as to why the monk should care so much to rescue Koll.
A man fell, got up and stumbled on, then fell again. Sick, I was thinking as the monk reeled past him, then let Koll slip to the ground, taking him by one hand. The pair of them ran on and the horsemen were closing fast, spraying water and clotted muck up.
‘An ounce of burnt silver says that small one is first to die,’ Eid muttered close to me, nudging his oarmate, one of Finnlaith’s Dyfflin men.
‘You never had an ounce of burnt silver,’ this one replied and Thorbrand’s curse was reeking.
‘That small one is the boy we came all this way to get,’ he spat at them.
Out on the sodden plain, the first of Randr’s men had reached the foot of the low hill and we could hear the desperate, ragged dog-panting of them. Randr himself stopped and half-turned, bellowing at those who lumbered past, almost on all fours, what he wanted them to do when they got the shelter of the trees. It was a good plan, but I was thinking to myself that none of his men were up for it.
The weak man fell yet again and the first long-shot arrows skittered and spat up water behind him, so that he scrambled up and weaved on, almost at a walk now. A dozen steps further on and he fell again and this time he lay there, so that the horsemen, almost casually, shot him full of arrows, whooping as they ran over him.
‘The boy…’ growled Eid and sprang to his feet. Thorbrand followed and, with a curse, so did the Dyfflin man. They roared out of the treeline, leaving me speechless and stunned with the speed of it all.
The horsemen, felt hats flapping, their bow-nosed ponies at full stretch, were heading for the bulk of the fleeing men; more arrows flew and two or three men went down. Randr himself stopped bellowing and started scrambling up the low hill towards us.
Two or three horsemen had turned off towards Koll and Leo the monk, but they had their sabres out, planning to run them down and slash them to ruin. The monk shoved Koll to the ground and then dived and rolled as the first horseman came on him, lashing out with his left hand as he did so; my heart thundered up into my throat, but the horseman missed and Leo’s slap had no effect, or so it seemed, while the others over-ran the pair.
Then Eid and the other two came howling down the hill like mad wolves and the horsemen, bewildered, milled and circled. Two of them whipped out arrows; the third turned back to Koll and Leo. After that, I remember it in fragments, like a shattered mirror flying everywhere, all the pieces with a different reflection.
Two arrows felled Eid as he ran. Thorbrand and the Dyfflin man crashed down on the two horsemen, stabbing and hacking. The third man’s horse staggered and fell as if Daneaxed, just as the rider urged it towards Koll and Leo; poison, I was thinking, even as I turned to fight. Enough in Leo’s stab to fell a horse in a few heartbeats – so he did have a hidden dagger after all.
The rest of the horsemen came up the slope, slinging their horn and wood bows and hauling out that wicked curve of sabre, a long smile of steel for hacking down on the fleeing. They were Vislanians, I learned later, who wore skin breeks and felt coats and caps and could climb under their ugly dog-ponies and up the other side at full gallop.
Not in the trees, though. They reined in from a gallop; Randr Sterki’s men were on their knees, frothing and gasping, with no fight in them and it looked to be easy enough for the riders – until they discovered the hornet byke they had stepped in.
Kuritsa began it by putting the last of his war arrows in the chest of one of the horses, so that it reared up and rolled its great eyes until the whites showed, pitching the rider off with a scream.
Then it was blood and shrieks and mayhem. Red Njal ran at them, hirpling on his lame leg, bellowing like a bull and his spear took one of the horsemen in the belly, so that his head snapped forward and he went over the plunging horse’s arse. Red Njal let the spear go and whipped out his seax.
Axes scythed, spears stabbed, swords whirled. It was bloody and vicious and my part in it was brutal and short – I came up on the man doing the most shouting, sitting on his dancing, wild-eyed pony, waving a crescent-moon of steel and bellowing.
He saw me come at him and raised the sabre, his eyes wide and red, his black moustaches seeming to writhe as he yelled; then something seemed to catch his arm as he raised it and I saw the shaft, through his forearm and into the shoulder, pinning his arm – a hunting arrow from Kuritsa.
The sabre fell from his fingers and he looked astonished, though he had only a few seconds to think at all, before I took Brand’s sword in a whirling, two-handed backstroke at his waist. Finn and others called this ‘opening the day-meal’ and it was a death-blow even if the victim did not die at once, for his belly split and everything in it fell out, blue-white, red, pale yellow.
He fell like a gralloched stag – and the rest of them tried to flee.
Cut them down, I heard myself screaming, though it sounded far away. None must escape to tell of what had been found and where we were.
The Oathsworn wolfed them, snarling and clawing. The last man turned his pony and flogged it back downhill, men chasing him, screaming. Kaelbjorn Rog, panting and sprinting, fell over his feet, bounced up and hurled his axe at the fleeing back in a fury of impotent rage, but it fell well short.
The arrow hissed out, a blur of speed and the smack of it hitting the rider’s back was almost drowned in the great roar of approval that went up as the fleeing man spilled from the saddle. The pony kept going and I knew, with a cold, heavy sink of feeling, that we had failed.
There was a heavy silence, reeking of blood and vomit and moans. Men moved, counting the cost, clapping each other on the shoulder in the sudden ecstasy that comes with surviving a battle, or else retching, hands on their knees and bent over.