“We should be looking for her, not walking into the Bonebacks with Helka’s whoremaster,” Vol said, louder.
Glornir looked at her. “We are the Bloodsworn, warriors for hire. This is what we do.” He tugged on his grey beard. “I worry for her, too, but Vigrie is a large place, and we do not know where to look. She will have to find us. I have made no secret of our path, where we have stayed—”
Varg slipped on a patch of sun-dried grass, the ground dusty, then righted himself, Glornir and Vol turning to look at him.
“What?” Glornir said to him.
Varg increased his pace until he was walking alongside them.
“The akáll I spoke of,” he said.
“No,” Glornir said. “Perhaps there will be a time, if you have what it takes to become one of us, but that time is not now.” He glowered at Varg. “I have explained this to you. Do not ask me again.”
Varg opened his mouth, feeling anger stir in him, urged on by the urgency in his gut, the need that he felt every waking moment. To honour his oath. To honour and avenge his sister.
“Do not,” Vol said to him, raising a hand. She stared at Varg, too, but without Glornir’s anger. If anything, he saw pity in her eyes. His footsteps faltered and he dropped back, walking alone, his head downcast. The anger in his gut stirred, frustration fanning its flame. It was like a sleeping forge, the coals hot beneath the ash, waiting to flare with a fresh blast of air from the bellows.
Perhaps there will be a time, you say. But when will that time come, if ever? Am I wasting what little time I have left on a task that means nothing to me? What are Jarl Helka’s people to me? I never knew them, never cared for them, he thought. A knot of emotion rose into his throat. Fr?ya is all that I ever cared for.
He heard voices behind him, turned and saw Skalk striding through the meadow with Olvir and Yrsa. He blinked tears from his eyes, and with an act of will pushed the emotion bubbling within him away, into the deep dark corners of his soul.
A Galdurman, a voice said in his thought-cage. One who can perform an akáll…
Skalk must have felt Varg’s eyes, for he looked at him, and Varg returned the gaze.
This time Varg did not tell that insistent voice in his head to be silent.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ORKA
Orka slipped into the courtyard of The Dead Drengr. Above her rainclouds shredded and blew across the sky like tattered banners. Shadows stretched and faded as dawn leaked into the world, a quiet stillness in the air. Behind her she heard the splash of oars dipping into water, the children she had freed rowing away. A horse looked out over its stable door at her and whinnied. Orka followed the curve of the wattle fence, one seax in her fist, the other still sheathed across the small of her back. There was one door to the tavern and Orka reached it, stood and listened a moment. She could hear the muffled sound of voices. Gently she lifted the latch and pulled the door open a little. Light bled out through the gap, voices louder: the general hum of conversation in a tavern, some drunken song. Orka could see a small room with cupboards, a clay oven glowing with fading heat, tables and shelves with cups, trenchers, eating boards. Knives and half-carved joints of meat. A door on the far side opened into the tavern. Orka glimpsed tables and chairs, people sitting and talking.
She stepped into the small room and pulled the door to behind her, taking care that the latch did not slip back into place. She took a look around and saw a set of wooden stairs leading up to a loft space. Another glance into the tavern. No one had heard her. She looked back to the steps.
I need to know if there is anyone in that loft, she thought. Don’t want an enemy at my back or blocking the only exit once I’m in the tavern.
She walked to the steps and slowly and carefully climbed them, testing each foot, letting her weight settle, until she was in the loft. It was empty and dark; there were no windows, only the glow from a recently extinguished torch of rushes still seeping into the room. Water dripped from thick thatch. She stood and sucked in a breath. It was a room the size of the tavern below, rafters crisscrossed, cobwebs draping them. A score of small reed mattresses filled the floor space, the smell of urine and faeces thick in the air. Orka was about to turn when something caught her eye: a thread of leather disappearing into the reeds of the mattress closest to her. She reached out and pulled it, and held in a gasp.
It was a small, wooden-carved sword dangling on a snapped leather cord.
Her heart pounded, feeling like a drum in her chest, and her stomach lurched.
She remembered seeing the carving around Breca’s neck, on their last night together in their home. A flood of memories tore through her thought-cage, of sitting and eating together, Breca angry about Virk’s death, wanting to learn sword craft. Thorkel was talking about the right path, about choices. She felt a savage rush of emotion, her throat constricting and tears prickling her eyes.