Varg stood in silence, the only sound the wind soughing through the barley and J?kul trying to catch the ponies in the paddock. Eventually he enticed them with a few apples, and in short time they were harnessed up with tack found in a stable block and being loaded with food barrels and kit for the Bloodsworn.
There were footsteps behind Varg and he turned to see Glornir marching out of the farm gates, his face twisted in a scowl.
“Empty,” the Bloodsworn’s chief said to Svik. “No bodies, no blood.” He paused and rubbed a hand over his bald head.
Edel walked out of the gates, a tunic in her hands. She drew her seax and sliced the tunic into two, then offered the two halves to her wolfhounds. They took deep snorting sniffs of the fabric.
“Bloodsworn,” Glornir called out, lifting a hand in the air and turning it in a tight circle, one finger pointed skywards. Torvik and a handful of other scouts stepped forwards, moving north, halting before the field of barley and rye. They were all young men and women clothed in wool and leather, apart from Edel in her brynja. She loped past Glornir and joined the other scouts, taking their lead, her hounds at her side. Edel stepped into the field of barley, Torvik and the others following her.
“Let’s go and earn our coin,” Glornir called out, and set off after Edel and the scouts.
Varg sucked in a deep breath. Beyond the fields of abandoned crops, meadows rolled into foothills that glittered with streams and were draped with birch and rowan, and beyond them the towering heights of the Boneback Mountains reared, their peaks wreathed in cloud and snow. Varg fell in alongside Svik, but before they reached the barley Varg looked back over his shoulder and saw sullen faces staring out from the Sea-Wolf, watching them. Lots had been drawn to decide who would stay with the ship, for it seemed that none wanted to. They were the Bloodsworn and were marching into danger, where no doubt fair battle-fame and silver awaited them. No one wanted to hear tell of the great deeds after the fight was won.
Apart from me.
I just want to survive long enough to find out how my sister died, and avenge her, Varg thought, his hand brushing the pouch on his belt as he walked towards the Boneback Mountains.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ORKA
“Kill me,” Orka said, standing with her feet spread in the grass, her hands loose and ready at her sides.
Lif lunged at her, his seax wrapped with a strip of wool, stabbing at Orka’s belly.
She slapped the blade away with the flat of one hand, side-stepped and punched Lif on the jaw. He stumbled away a few steps, then his legs gave way and he sank to the ground, looking up at Orka with a dazed expression.
Mord laughed, sitting on a boulder as he filleted a salmon as long as his arm.
“I thought you were teaching us weapons craft,” Mord said. “This looks more like beating us up for fun. Not fun for us, I feel I should point out,” he added.
“I am teaching you,” Orka said, offering Lif her arm and pulling him back to his feet. “That if you do a foolish thing, pain will follow. Or death.” She scowled at Lif. “You took too large a step, which left you off balance. Small steps in, small steps out,” she said. “Never lunge. Never over-extend. It’s the same rule, whether you are using your fists, a seax, a spear or a sword. And never charge straight in. That only works for bulls and boars.” She paused. “And for trolls. Side steps: look for the openings; find the gaps in your opponent’s defence. And strike in flurries: two, three, four blows. Often the blow that ends a fight is the one your enemy did not see coming.”
Lif rubbed his chin, a bruise already mottling.
“Pain and bruises reinforce a lesson,” Orka said.
“Heya, agreed,” Lif mumbled.
“Then we must have learned much from you already,” Mord barked a laugh as he looked at her through one swollen, blackened eye. Other bruises speckled the faces and bodies of both brothers, varying from purple to green to yellow, telling the tale of how old the bruises were, and how long the brothers had been receiving such lessons from Orka during their journey north. Mord’s shoulder was still bound with linen where the N?cken had bitten him, though that wound was healing well, and his head still bore a red scar where he had been clubbed by Guevarr at Fellur village. Orka had been silently impressed with the way he had thrown himself into the weapons craft lessons she had given the two brothers, despite Mord’s more serious wounds.
“By the number of your bruises you should be fit to fight a holmganga against Ilska the Cruel soon,” Lif said to Mord.