“Get him back. Get Bjarn back for me,” Uspa pleaded, talking to Agnar but with her eyes fixed on Elvar.
“We tried,” Agnar said. “Ilska and the Raven-Feeders have him. They have sailed on their drakkar.” He shrugged. “I went after your son because I will not be attacked, robbed, have my warriors murdered. But there is no tracking Ilska now. Even if I wanted to, it would be a long, hard task to find her, and one that would end without coin. I am chief of the Battle-Grim; I am their gold-giver, their ring-giver.” His eyes flickered to Elvar. “Chasing after your son would not feed my crew. If I come across Ilska again, I will settle my grievance with her, but other than that…” he shrugged. “The question in my thought-cage, though, is, why did they take your son? He is worth a few coins in the thrall-market.” Agnar looked out at the naked corpses of Ilska’s warriors who had died in their raid and sniffed. “He was not worth this.”
Uspa looked around the room, finally fixing her eyes upon Agnar.
“They did not want Bjarn,” she said. “They wanted me.”
“Why?” Agnar asked her. “You are useful: a Seier-witch is always useful. But to risk a raid on me and my Battle-Grim, to start a blood feud. Why?”
“If I tell you, will you get my son back for me?”
“That would depend on how much coin I can make from what you tell me.”
“Coin? Is that the sum of your soul, Agnar, chief of the Battle-Grim? Coin?”
“Coin feeds bellies and is the weighing scale of a warrior’s reputation,” Agnar said.
Uspa nodded. “More coin than you can imagine, and more fame than you could ever wish for,” she sighed.
“Tell me, then,” Agnar said.
Uspa looked away, her face twitching. Fear deep in her eyes.
Agnar took a step closer to her, his fingertips brushing the hilt of his seax. “My oathman died because of you. I will know why.”
“Threats do not work on me, Agnar Coin-Seeker. I do not fear death, or pain.”
“I could put those words to the test,” Agnar said.
Uspa shrugged. “And waste both our time,” she answered.
Agnar blew out a breath. “But you do fear your son’s death. You fear a life parted from him. So, Bjarn, then. Your secret for your son.”
Uspa chewed her lip, then nodded. She leaned forwards, her lips touching Agnar’s ear, and whispered something. Agnar jumped back, as if stung.
“You lie,” he said.
Uspa just stared at Agnar.
Elvar felt her heart pound and blood surge through her veins, because she had heard the words Uspa had whispered.
I know the way to Oskutree.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ORKA
What do they want with my Breca? Orka thought as she rowed. Why would they go to such lengths to steal bairns? My son. Harek. The others Virk spoke of. And why did they slay the Froa-spirit? Orka muttered to herself as she rowed. She knew that some of these questions could not be answered and that gnawing on them would only cause her pain and break her focus. Any thought of Breca caused her pain, not knowing where he was, if he was in pain, being mistreated. But the questions would not stay locked away. Instead they circled and spiralled through her thought-cage, like crows drawn to the scent of death. And the last question that loomed over them all.
Thorkel said one was dragon-born. Tainted seed of Lik-Rifa. But they do not exist. Was it a death-haze mistake? Thorkel was not one for mistakes. The thought of Thorkel felt like a fist squeezing her heart and she snarled and spat, imagining pushing a seax into her invisible enemy. She bent and rowed, bent and rowed, the questions swirling.
The Froa-spirit because we had bowed the knee to her, swore we would dwell in peace in her land, and so we were under her protection? To take Breca they had to break her power first. But why? Why is Breca so important to them? In a way it did not matter. It would not change what Orka intended to do: get her son back and kill everyone who was involved in his taking. But unravelling the answers to these questions might help her find him, and then it did matter. But the answers would not come.
She lifted her head, blinking sweat from her eyes. She had been lost in the heave and pull of the oar, and the swelling waves of emotion in her thought-cage and veins as well; she felt like a small, solitary figure drifting in a sea of grief. Images of Thorkel and Breca swirled around her. Hate consumed her.
“What is it?” Lif asked, sitting on the bench beside her and pulling on the other oar. He was sweating with the rowing and the summer sun, both of them stripped to linen tunics, Orka’s brynja and woollen tunic rolled and tied beneath the oar-bench. Mord was in the stern sitting on a pile of rope and weaving coppiced willow branches into a fish trap. They had spied plentiful trout and salmon in the river as they had rowed upstream but had little luck with their spears in skewering any for their supper.