Orka sliced through the leather cord, freeing the girl’s arms. She rubbed her wrists and gave a hesitant smile.
“You’re free now,” Orka said.
Others held their wrists out and Orka sawed at them until all were free of the leather bindings.
“Why have they taken you?” she asked the older lad. “What do they want you all for?”
“Don’t know,” the lad shrugged.
“One last thing,” Orka said. “Do you know a man named Drekr?”
Looks of fear.
“Where is he?” Orka said, a snarl.
“In there,” the first boy who had spoken to her said. He pointed at the tavern.
Orka stood and stepped off the boat on to the canal side, then looked back at the older boy.
“You’re free now,” she said. “Will you help these others?” She gestured to the rest of the children, who were sniffling, wide-eyed with fear.
“I will,” he nodded.
“Good. If you can row a boat, take this one. If not, run, fast and far, and do not look back.”
She walked towards the tavern.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
VARG
Varg dropped a ladleful of cold porridge into his bowl.
“Don’t look so disappointed,” Svik said to him. The warrior was sitting against a tree, the first hint of dawn lancing through branches into the glade they had camped within and tinting his features with gold.
“It’s cold,” Varg complained.
“There are worse things than cold porridge in this world.” Svik smiled up at him. “You will most likely be meeting some of them soon.”
“That does not make me happier, if that is what you were trying to do,” Varg told him, still staring at the porridge.
Glornir had ordered no fires as they had moved into the foothills before the Bonebacks.
In truth Varg was used to eating much worse: the food and rations on Kolskegg’s farm that had been given to the thralled farmworkers had been little better than the slop fed to the pigs.
It is strange how quickly we become accustomed to better things. It was not so long ago that hot porridge with cream and honey was a feast beyond compare. Now it is… normal.
“Here, have some of my cheese,” Svik said, slicing a wedge from a hard round sitting on a trencher at his side. “Please take it, before your mood infects me and I cut my own throat.”
“In that case, don’t eat the cheese,” R?kia said to Varg, nudging him with her elbow as she slopped cold porridge into her own bowl. “This could be the answer to my dreams.” She gave Svik a cold smile.
“She loves me really,” Svik said as he shook the cheese at Varg, who took it and sat beside the slim, gleaming warrior.
“You really do like cheese, don’t you?” Varg observed.
“Cheese saved my life,” Svik said.
“Oh no, not that story again,” R?kia said, rolling her eyes. “Do not ask him how.”
“How?” Varg asked Svik.
Svik grinned and shifted, making himself comfortable. Other Bloodsworn were gathering around, Einar pushing through them to sit close to Svik and Varg.
“I love this story,” Einar said.
“That is only because one of your kin is in it,” R?kia said.
“I am not a troll,” Einar said, giving R?kia a hurt look, “I just have big bones.”
R?kia raised an eyebrow.
Torvik came and joined them.
“Svik is a great tale-teller,” Torvik whispered to Varg.
“When I was young,” Svik said, “I had two older brothers, and we lived in a steading on the eaves of a forest. One day when it was still early my two brothers came running out of the trees, frightened for their lives. They had gone to cut wood for our winter store, but a troll had come upon them and threatened to eat them.”
“Trolls are nasty like that,” Einar whispered to Varg.
“Being both proud and practical, even if I was only young, I thought that this was not an acceptable situation,” Svik said. “We needed the wood stores for winter or we would freeze, and also I did not like the thought of someone threatening my family. So, I set off into the woods, remembering to take a round of cheese with me in a small hemp sack, as I might be gone a while and become hungry.”
“Sensible,” Einar commented.
“I found the dead wood and cut timber that my brothers had begun working on, their axes and saws and other tools left where they had dropped them. There was no sign of a troll, so I picked up an axe and continued with the hard work. Before long I grew tired and so stopped for a break. I sat on a log and took out the cheese to eat some, but as I did so I felt the ground tremble and heard branches snapping, and turned to see a troll striding towards me, his antlers and tusks lowered.”