Those who find Oskutree, and all the treasures that are there, their names will live for ever. Long after my father’s name and bones have faded to dust.
A silence settled over them, heavy as a rain-soaked cloak.
“Life,” Uspa whispered, pointing to the first rune. She drew the knife across the heel of her hand and let the blood drip on to the rune, filling the deep-carved lines.
“Líf,” Kráka breathed.
“Death,” Uspa said, her blood tracing the second rune.
“Dauea,” Kráka whispered.
“Blood oath,” Uspa muttered as her blood flowed into the third rune.
“Blóe svarie,” Kráka echoed.
“Torment,” Uspa said, her blood filling the last rune.
“Kv?l,” Kráka croaked, the word sounding like a drumbeat in Elvar’s head, or a door slamming shut.
“All of you,” Uspa said, “join your blood to mine.”
There was a rasp of seaxes leaving their scabbards. Elvar sliced her blade across her palm and held her hand out. She saw Grend do the same, saw his blood flow and she held his hand, knowing the sacrifice he was making for her, knowing that he did not want to do this, knowing that his oath to Elvar’s dead mother drove him. Their blood mingled and dripped on to the runes.
Agnar held his hand out, blood dripping, then Sighvat, and finally Kráka. All of them with hands held over the runes, their blood falling, mingling.
Uspa opened her mouth and spoke.
“Blóe eie munum vie gera,
ae binda hver vie annan mee rúnir af krafti,
hureir ae g?mlu leieunum, innsiglaear og bundnar mee blóei.”
Uspa spoke in little more than a whisper, but her voice seemed to fill the room, echoing in Elvar’s head.
“Blood oath we make, binding one to the other with runes of power, door to the old ways,” Kráka said, her voice scratching.
“Eie okkar innsiglue mee blóei okkar, lífi, dauea og kvalum,
bundin mee blóei okkar,” Uspa said.
“Our oath sealed with our blood, life, death and torment, bound with our blood,” Kráka intoned.
A wind swept through the room, a chill rippling through Elvar. The blood that filled the runes hissed and sizzled, steam rising from them, and then the blood rose into the air, hovering, like long strands of tendon or red string, painting the runes in the air. Sighvat gasped. With a crackle the blood runes moved together, merging into one long strand, and it floated up, higher, towards all of their hands, which were still held stretched over the runes. The strand of blood wrapped around them, binding hands and wrists together, pulling them tight, Elvar flinching as it touched her skin. It was hot, pain jolting up her arm, but she could not pull away. She heard Grend hiss beside her, saw Sighvat’s arm jerk, but none of them pulled away.
The smell of burning flesh, the crackle of skin sizzling.
“Svo skal pae vera,” Uspa growled. “Say it with me.”
“Svo skal pae vera,” Elvar and the others intoned.
“So be it,” Kráka said and the blood-cord around their hands and wrists writhed and hissed and sizzled, then evaporated into steam.
Elvar’s arm fell away, a red weal wrapped around her hand and wrist like a red tattoo.
They all looked at one another, fear and awe reflected in each other’s eyes.
Agnar smiled.
“To Oskutree,” he said, and Elvar could not stop the thrill in her veins or the laughter bubbling out of her throat.
CHAPTER THIRTY
VARG
Varg banked and shipped his oar as the Sea-Wolf cut across the current towards the east bank of the River Sl?gen. Strakes bumped on timber as the ship grated against a pier, Svik and R?kia leaping from the top-rail on to wooden boards and tying off mooring ropes. Beyond the riverbank was a farm. A stockade wall with a single gate surrounded a turf-roofed longhouse and outbuildings, and beyond the timber wall fields of barley and rye rippled across a meadow that stretched towards tree-shrouded foothills.
They had rowed hard up the river for five long days, the muscles in Varg’s back and shoulders coming to feel like they were in a permanent state of spasm, his hands raw, but now it seemed that the time for rowing was over. Glornir had announced a little earlier that they were about to make landfall and continue their journey by foot, moving into the foothills of the Boneback Mountains in their quest.
Glornir slotted the tiller and shouted orders, Einar Half-Troll echoing them, and then all was movement, warriors stacking oars in racks and delving into their sea-chests. Svik appeared at Varg’s shoulder as he sat on his sea-chest, still staring at the farmstead. Between the pier and the stockade wall was an area of ground dotted with moss and grass-covered mounds.