Varg looked at it. Strips of limewood glued and bound with a rim of rawhide, an iron boss at its centre, a wooden handle riveted across the back.
“More useful if you hold it, rather than look at it,” the woman said to him. Her nose and chin were long and thin, sharp as a drakkar’s prow.
Varg shook his head. “Don’t want it,” he said.
“Don’t be an idiot. How long are you going to last against Half-Troll without it?”
Varg shook his head again. The truth was, he’d never held a shield before, let alone used one in a fight.
“It’s your life,” the woman shrugged.
“But look after this for me,” Varg said, taking his cloak off and folding it, holding it out to her.
The woman took it, curled her lip and dropped it on the ground.
“I’m no one’s thrall to be ordered,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Varg,” he said.
“He has no name,” Svik called out to them.
“And no shield,” she answered Svik. She looked back at Varg. “And no sense.” Then she turned away.
“VARG NO-SENSE TO CHALLENGE EINAR HALF-TROLL FOR A PLACE IN THE BLOODSWORN’S OAR-BENCH AND SHIELD WALL,” she bellowed as she walked back to the bald man and Einar. A roar went up from the crowd as Einar stepped into the square. His brows knotted as he saw Varg had no shield, but he walked on.
Close up Einar was bigger than he’d first appeared. His face was all slabs of bone and red hair, his fists the size of anvils.
Varg touched the pouch at his belt, glanced at Vol the Seier-witch, who was watching with dark eyes, then he looked back at Einar.
For you, Fr?ya. I do this for you.
He drew in a deep breath and shook out his arms and hands, bounced on the balls of his feet.
Einar loomed over him, blotting out the sun.
“When you go down, stay down,” the big man grunted at him, and swung a right hook.
Varg ducked the hook, whistling over his head, and darted close, releasing a flurry of punches to Einar’s gut, the slap of meat. It was like punching a tree. Einar gave no visible sign that he had felt anything. Varg ducked and stepped right, avoided another hook that swept over his head, stepped in and kicked at Einar’s knee. The big man grunted, beard shifting as his mouth twisted.
You felt that, didn’t you, big man.
A huge hammer-fist came hurtling down at Varg, who swayed and stepped right, air hissing past his face, and threw his own punch at Einar’s groin.
Varg had fought before, many times on the farm. The first time had been before he could grow hair on his chin, fighting among the farm’s thralls for an extra bowl of broth for Fr?ya, who had been shivering with a fever. Then more frequently as he found it a sure way to secure a few secret coins or extra meals. And finally, for Kolskegg, once his master had heard about his fast fists, putting Varg to work in bouts against the champions of other landed men. He had earned Kolskegg a chest of silver, and in the process fought many men and women bigger and stronger than him, but he’d not fought any man that could stand after a blow to their stones, no matter how big or strong they were.
Varg’s blow was perfectly timed, a straight right, his legs well set, the power from his legs and hips channelled into his twisting arm, wrist snapping just before impact.
Pain exploded in Varg’s fist, shot through his wrist, up his arm and he staggered back a step. There had been no soft, squashing connection; instead Varg’s fist crunched into something hard as iron.
“Ha,” Einar grinned. “Little men have tried that before. J?kul the smith has made me some protection.” And then he swung a meat-hammer fist at Varg’s face.
Despite the pain exploding in Varg’s hand he managed to move, Einar’s fist connecting with Varg’s shoulder instead of his chin. The blow lifted him from his feet and sent him twisting through the air, crunching to the ground and rolling in the mud.
Einar strode after him.
Varg scrambled on to hand and knees, his injured fist clutched to his side. Waves of nausea pulsed from his gut. Then Einar’s boot connected with his ribs and he was lifted from the ground, weightless again, spinning.
The ground rose up to greet him, his head slamming into the mud. Stars exploded, his vision blurring, pain in his ribs screaming. He forced himself to roll, climbed to one knee, saw Einar closing on him again.
“I told you to stay down,” Einar growled.
A bloom of anger in Varg’s belly. The pugil-ring was the only place where he could not be told what to do. Where he had been free. Where the rage he always felt was unchained. It flooded through his veins now, white-hot.