He will tell me where Breca is, if I have to carve the answer from his flesh.
Then she was moving in again, her two weapons a blur, striking in flurries. Sparks rang out, Drekr retreating, using his axe like a short staff, blocking, slicing, Orka swaying, stabbing, chopping, eyes fixed on his as she sought his life. An exchange of blows, strikes, parries and counters, and then they were stepping away from each other, both of them breathing hard. Orka felt a pain across her leg, below the knee, and glanced down to see blood soaking into her leg wrap. The pain arrived a few moments later, throbbing, burning.
She ignored it.
Drekr scowled at her, a red line across his torso, another wound across his shoulder, his tunic torn and hanging. Orka glimpsed a tattoo across his shoulder and chest, a serpent with jaws open and fangs bared, its body all writhing knotwork.
He strode at her and she moved to meet him, axe high, seax low. He caught an overhand swing of her axe on his own axe shaft, wood clacking, a twist of his wrist and his axe blade sliced her forearm, her axe spinning from her grip. At the same time, she was stabbing her seax at his belly, but somehow he was twisting to the side, her seax stabbing into air, just nicking his tunic. He gave a short, stamping kick to her wounded leg and she staggered, dropped to one knee and then he was behind her, his axe shaft around her throat, squeezing.
She grabbed the shaft with her free hand and swung her seax behind her, wildly trying to find Drekr’s flesh but slicing only air. Black dots floated in front of her eyes.
“A good scrap,” Drekr grunted behind her, the muscles in his arms straining and bulging like eels in a sack, “but you are finished now. Know this as you take the soul road: your son will change the world.”
He gave a savage wrench on the axe shaft, Orka feeling muscle and tendon tear in her neck, her vision greying, like a curtain of fog rising up all around her. Strength was draining from her limbs, her breath a ragged, burning gasp.
Dimly she heard distant sounds: the blowing of a horn, the thumping of hooves, all of it fading, falling away.
Thorkel. Breca. Their faces floated in her thought-cage, both of them staring at her, sombre-eyed, accusing.
“Avenge me,” Thorkel whispered.
“Find me,” Breca pleaded.
Something shifted, deep inside Orka, her consciousness and clarity returning with a snap. She felt her blood churn through her veins, the heat of anger changing, abruptly cold, primal, sweeping her body, fire and ice mingled. A flush of strength flooded her muscles, her vision returning in a rush, sharper, senses keener.
The horn was blaring louder, voices shouting commands, the tramp of many feet.
She let go of the axe shaft crushing her throat and grabbed Drekr’s fist that was gripping the shaft, tore at it and felt the crackle of bone: a finger or thumb breaking.
A snarl came from behind her as Drekr’s grip loosened, and in a snapping, snarling burst Orka ripped herself free, threw herself forwards, twisting and turning, slashing with her seax. Drekr stumbled away, blood blossoming across one thigh, holding his axe clumsily, the knuckle around his thumb purpling and swelling.
Orka found her axe in the mud and stood.
“You will tell me where my son is,” she snarled, a savage hate pulsing through her. She wanted to tear, rip, kill, to shred Drekr’s flesh and pound his skull into the ground.
Shouts and screams sounded among the crowd, one man running between Orka and Drekr, then others. Orka saw Hakon in the crowd, pulling his hood up, turning and running, his drengr guard shielding him from the crush. She glanced away and saw a company of drengrs marching down the street, thirty or forty warriors with shields ready, spears pounding a steady rhythm on their shields as they advanced. A warrior rode at their rear, blowing on a horn.
“Can’t have you getting out of this,” Drekr said. “My thought-cage tells me you will be a pain in the arse.” He gestured and men stepped out of the crowd, those from inside the tavern, and the two that had stood guard outside. They moved in on Orka, a tightening circle of axes, cudgels, seaxes, all pointed at her.
Orka set her feet and growled at them, turning slowly.
“Who wants to die first?” she snarled.
There was a pounding of hooves and a horse appeared in the crowd, hurling people away. It rode closer, neighing and stamping, its rider stabbing down at one of the guards in the circle around Orka. The man fell away with a scream, a red gash down his chest and the horse pressed into the ring, the other guard raising his cudgel to swing at the rider, but a second horse and rider appeared, crashing into him, sending him flying.