Elvar sat with her back to a hawthorn tree with a trencher balanced on her knees. She used a small skinning seax to cut and skewer a fillet of still steaming oat-wrapped cod from the pan. She blew on it and huffed as she put it in her mouth, the flesh and fried oats too hot, but too delicious to wait for.
They had made landfall soon after midday of their second day on the lake and had searched for a suitable place to anchor and moor the Wave-Jarl. They were in a secluded inlet now, flanked with alder, birch and hawthorn. The wagons had been brought ashore and constructed with mallets and dowel-pins, the ponies hobbled close by. Elvar could hear the boat creaking on the water, and through the trees she glimpsed starlight reflecting silver around the ship and on the newly tarred hull. Lots had been drawn for who would stay to guard the ship, Elvar not feeling her usual fear at that possibility, because she knew that all who had sworn the oath to Uspa had no choice but to continue on the journey to Oskutree.
All the Battle-Grim were gathered together, apart from Grend and Sighvat, who were first to take watch. They were not too far away, though, lurking on the outer edge of the copse of trees that the company had made camp within. Agnar stood beside a firepit scratched into the ground, flames flaring and crackling, branches swaying above him. A pot hung over the fire, a barley stew simmering in it, and a flat iron pan lay over hot embers, with more of the cod Elvar was eating frying in oats and butter.
A silence had settled over the gathering, because Agnar had just told them why they had ventured north, through the Boneback Mountains and into the heart of the Battle-Plain.
“Oskutree?” Huld said. She was the next youngest in the warband, after Elvar, her hair black as night. She reached up and tugged on the bear-claw that hung from a leather cord about her neck. Elvar saw her own emotions flickering across Huld’s face: disbelief, followed by fear and excitement.
“Aye,” Agnar said.
“How?” another voice asked. It was lean, grey-haired Sólín, who had been picking her teeth with a seax. Her arm hung at her side now.
“There is much to the tale,” Agnar said. “Uspa stole a book of magic, a Galdrabok, from Ilska the Cruel.”
“The Graskinna,” Uspa said, her voice a hiss from where she sat at the edge of the shadows. Kráka and the Hundur-thrall were sitting with her.
“Uspa was destroying it when we found her, throwing it into the molten fires of Iskalt Island. But not before she had read it and learned its secrets,” Agnar smiled.
“So Ilska’s attack was not for the boy. It was for her,” Huld said, looking at Uspa.
“Aye,” Agnar said, “that is what we think. They took the boy in their rush to flee. Perhaps to trade or bargain with us, with Uspa.”
“Ilska could be following us, then,” Elvar said, voicing a possibility that had been lurking in her thought-cage.
Biórr came and sat beside her, a bowl of barley stew and black bread in his hand.
“She could,” Agnar agreed. “Though there has been no sign of her.” He shrugged. “I hope that she does. It will make fulfilling my oath easier.” He pulled back the sleeve of his tunic to show the spiralling scars around his hand, wrist and forearm. In the flame-glow they looked like rings of fire. “I swore the blóe svarie, the blood oath, to Uspa the Seier-witch. She will guide us to Oskutree, and I will get her son back or die in the trying.” He looked around. “Others swore it, too. Sighvat. Elvar. Grend. Kráka.”
A jerk of Biórr’s head as he looked at her.
“And even though you do not bear these marks,” Agnar continued, raising his scarred fist, “if you follow me to Oskutree, then you are bound by it too.” He blew out a long breath. “Oskutree, the great Ash Tree, where the gods fought and fell. Ulfrir, Orna, Berser, Rotta, all of them. Their remains, their riches, their war gear. Their captains…” His words spun a saga-tale of gold and wealth, of fame and fortune unimaginable. Elvar could see the fire of it sparking to life in the eyes of everyone around her.
“Will you follow me?” Agnar said, his voice little more than a whisper.
“We will follow you, Agnar Fire-Fist,” Biórr said.
Voices rang out, a chorus of heya’s, oaths and cheers.
“Then let us seal it with some mead,” Agnar cried, laughing and rolling a barrel into view.
The cheers were louder as the barrel was opened and horns were dipped. Agnar gave full drinking horns to all of his Battle-Grim, laughing and smiling as he did, people raising their horns and drinking, to Agnar, to Oskutree, to the Battle-Grim. Elvar lifted her horn and took a deep draught of mead, feeling the honey-sweet trickle down her throat and send a warm glow through her belly. Agnar smiled at her and walked on.