The bridge was wide enough for fifty warriors to walk abreast, and made of ice, thick and solid, a crunch and crackle under Elvar’s feet, like walking on frost-touched grass. Light shimmered within the ice, captured and fractured from the molten river that Elvar could see through the bridge, bubbling far below.
How does the ice not melt?
“This is not the place to stop,” Uspa called out, standing at the arch of the bridge. Behind her lay land that had not been seen or trodden upon by humankind for three hundred years.
“Ha, the Seier-witch speaks truth,” Agnar called out. “Onwards,” he bellowed, “to Oskutree.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
VARG
Varg sat with his back to a tree and chewed on a strip of hard mutton. His jaw was aching and he was certain it would be easier to chew through the leather sole of his turn-shoes. It was late in the night, or at least Varg thought it was. Sólst?eur had begun, the month of day, where night was banished for thirty days. It was not full light, twilight hovering in the air like motes of dust, their camp set in a small glade among pinewoods. Faintly Varg could see the line of the moon, pale in a pale sky. But his body told him it was night and he pulled his cloak tighter about him.
He sat alone. Torvik was on guard duty, as were Svik and R?kia, all of them scattered through the woodland. Glornir sat with Vol, his long-axe cradled on his lap as he ran a whetstone along its edge. Einar Half-Troll was sitting with Sulich, grumbling about the hole in his belly that needed filling. Sulich was shaving the stubble from his head with his seax.
“A hot meal is all I can think of,” Einar muttered.
“No fire,” Glornir said through the scrape and rasp of his whetstone, not raising his eyes from his axe blade.
They all knew the rule by now, and the sense of it, but chewing on strips of cold hard mutton did not help to ease the absence of hot food.
Skalk sat nearby, Olvir and Yrsa beside him. The two warriors spoke in hushed voices, a strain etched upon Olvir’s face that had not left him since they had found the mutilated bodies hanging in the pine trees. Skalk’s head was bowed, his face a shadow. Varg still felt unsettled by those bodies and had dreamed of them each night since then, skinned carcasses swaying, ropes creaking. He thought of his conversation with Skalk before they had found the bodies, of how Skalk could perform an akáll, if Varg were prepared to leave the Bloodsworn and swear an oath to the Galdurman. Without thinking his hand strayed to the pouch on his belt and he thought of Fr?ya, his dead sister, murdered. He did not know where her body was or who had killed her. It gnawed at his soul like a rat chewing marrow from a bone.
Footsteps sounded, and Torvik appeared through the trees, saw Varg and strode to him, smiling as he sat beside him.
Varg offered him a strip of mutton.
“What is it you have in that pouch?” Torvik asked him, taking the mutton.
Varg pulled his hand away as if he’d been caught stealing.
“You protect it like it was filled with gold,” Torvik said. The young man shrugged. “It is your business, but if I can help you, I would.”
Varg blew out a long, tremulous breath. Then he reached back to the pouch, unhooked it and put his hand in, pulling out a lock of black hair.
“It is my sister’s,” Varg said. “I need it for the akáll which will show me who murdered her.”
Torvik nodded. “I will help you,” he said.
“Help with what?” Varg asked him, frowning.
“When Glornir grants you the akáll,” Torvik said, “I will help you hunt your sister’s killers. Edel tells me I have a good nose, that I will make a decent huntsman. I will help you find your sister’s murderers, and help you kill them.”
Varg just stared at Torvik. He opened his mouth to say something but found there was a pressure in his chest and a lump in his throat that words could not squeeze past. All his life he had been alone, Fr?ya his only companion, his only friend, the only one he had ever trusted. As he sat and stared at Torvik he knew that this lad before him meant what he said.
If Glornir ever deems me worthy, a voice in his thought-cage said.
Whether Glornir grants the akáll or not, that does not change what Torvik has just offered, he answered that voice.
He looked away and swiped a tear from his eye.
“My… thanks,” Varg muttered.
It will be hard to leave these people. Torvik, Svik, Einar, even R?kia, he thought. I have grown to… like them. But after talking to Skalk he knew what he should do, for Fr?ya, to fulfil his oath.