“Come on,” the first rider shouted, a man leaning in their saddle and waving a hand at Orka.
She blinked, the red haze in her head fading a fraction, melting enough to realise who it was.
“Come on!” Lif yelled again. He grabbed the neck of Orka’s mail coat, his horse pounding on, dragging her with it, and together they crashed through the circle around her, sending the burned man reeling. Orka gripped Lif’s forearm and jumped, heaving herself into the saddle behind him, Mord riding hard behind them.
They rode down the mud-slick street, people leaping out of their way, and then Lif was dragging on his reins and they were veering right into an alley. Orka looked back and caught a glimpse of Drekr standing and staring at her. He lifted his axe in a salute, a promise, and then Orka was plunging into the shadows.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
VARG
Varg paused and wiped sweat from his brow. The terrain around them had shifted over the last few days of travel, from gentle hills and meadows to sharp slopes and twisting valleys. He was climbing a steep, rock-littered ravine, the Bloodsworn stretched out in a long line behind him. Above him Glornir and Vol climbed together, and ahead of them he could just make out the forms of Torvik, Edel and the other scouts reaching the lip of this dried-out river and disappearing into a fringe of pinewoods. Edel’s two wolfhounds stood at the ravine’s rim, one of them looking down at Edel, barking and wagging its tail. To Varg it looked like level ground lay beyond the ravine’s lip.
At least, that is what he hoped.
“Get moving, Varg No-Sense,” R?kia called up to him. “Or are you waiting for an eagle to swoop down and carry you the rest of the way?”
“My sore feet are wishing exactly that,” Varg muttered, blisters throbbing on the soles of his feet. He rolled his shoulders and shrugged his shield upon his back, shifting the leather strap that bit into him, and walked on, using his spear like a walking staff. Sweat steamed from his body, the temperature palpably dropping as they climbed ever higher towards the Boneback Mountains, despite the clear skies and summer sun. Varg finally clambered over the rim of the riverbed, more like the gradient of a dried-out waterfall now, and looked ahead. He saw an open, rocky space and then trees looming tall, the scent of pine sap thick in the air.
He heard a grunt, the sound of rocks skittering behind him, and he turned to see Sulich stumble, his long warrior-braid swinging wildly as scree shifted beneath his feet. Varg thrust his spear shaft out and Sulich grabbed it to steady himself.
“Hold tight,” Varg said, and pulled Sulich up the rest of the slope and on to the rim.
“My thanks,” Sulich said to him as he clambered on to level ground.
“And my apology,” Varg said, “for insulting you in Liga. About your kinsman’s war gear.” It was something that had chewed at Varg’s thought-cage, but every time he had looked at Sulich the warrior had ignored him, or his brows had been knitted in a way that discouraged any conversation.
Sulich looked at him and gave him a long and appraising gaze, a hint of a frown.
“I am… was, a thrall,” Varg continued. “Have been one all of my life. This warrior’s way, it is a mystery to me. I meant you no insult.”
Sulich maintained his gaze, then gave a curt nod.
“We will think on it no more,” he said.
“Thank you,” Varg said.
The two of them stood and looked at the trees. Something about the shadowed gloom set Varg’s hairs standing on end. The air was colder, Varg feeling it in his chest as he sucked in deep breaths, and he could see the glimmer of frost patches on tree bark. His breath misted.
They set off into the trees together. The ground was spongy with needles and stiff with frost. Varg heard grunting behind them, turned and saw Skalk climbing over the ravine’s rim. The Galdurman stopped, waiting while Olvir and Yrsa appeared over the rim behind him. They stood together in silence, staring at the woodland.
A decision was made in Varg’s thought-cage, and he stopped to take a drink from his water bottle, letting Sulich walk on ahead, and waited for Skalk and his two guards to draw near. The Galdurman glanced at him as Varg fell in beside him. Olvir the guard frowned and stepped closer to Skalk, while Yrsa’s eyes were searching the shadows of the pinewood.
“Your shield, it is unfinished,” Skalk said as they walked along together. “There is no blood-spatter upon it.”
“I am recently come to the Bloodsworn,” Varg said. “I am not yet one of them, have not yet taken their oath.”