Torvik shrugged and smiled.
“Bannae j?re,” a voice called out and Varg turned to see that it was Skalk who had spoken. The Galdurman had raised his head and was staring at Vol. “Forbidden ground,” Skalk said. “That was the rune carved into the corpses of my drengrs.”
“It was,” Vol agreed.
“What does it mean?” Skalk asked her.
Vol frowned. “A warning, to stay away,” she said, then shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It sounds like some gods-tainted warning to me,” Skalk said. “I am a Galdurman, have studied the rune lore and Galdur-law all my life, have travelled all Vigrie and beyond, and bent the knee at a score of Galdur towers, and that was a rune I have never seen before. And yet you knew what it said. It is part of your Tainted Seier filth, yes?”
Glornir raised his eyes from sharpening his whetstone and fixed Skalk with a hard look.
“Do not threaten me,” Skalk said with a wave of his hand. “I am no child or thrall to be cowed with a look or a reputation.” His gaze shifted to Einar, whose brows were knotted like a thunderhead. “You want a fire for your porridge, Half-Troll?” Skalk said. He held his hand out. “Eldur,” he breathed, and a spark ignited in his palm, a solitary flame crackling into existence.
Varg felt a chill slither through his veins. He had never seen Galdur-magic, and now that he had, he felt that he did not like it much. He could feel the power radiating from Skalk in waves, like heat from a fire.
Glornir looked from Skalk to the flame crackling in his hand.
“Put it out,” he said.
“No fires,” Einar muttered.
Skalk closed his hand into a fist, the flame stuttering and dying.
“Is this sacred ground, to you Tainted?” Skalk asked, eyes moving back to Vol.
She shrugged. “We are walking across Snaka’s bones. I can feel them even now, like a song in the ground, deep beneath us. He made us, made the world; of course this is sacred ground. But that is no reason to string and gut a warband of drengrs.”
Varg saw Olvir shift, his mouth twisting.
“But the rune did not say sacred. It said forbidden,” Vol said.
“Sometimes the two walk hand in hand,” Skalk mused. “Then why is this forbidden ground?” Skalk asked again.
“I do not know,” Vol said.
“No doubt we shall find that out, when we find whatever did that to your warriors,” Glornir said.
A silence settled between them.
“What is the difference between a Galdurman and a Seier-witch?” Varg asked into that silence. The thought had formed in his thought-cage and he had not realised he asked it out loud.
Skalk turned his gaze on to Varg, staring at him as if he had just uttered the greatest insult.
“I have worked on a farm my whole life,” Varg said with a shrug. “Magic is magic to me, regardless of who performs it.”
“Galdur-magic is taught by the wise, by scholars, to the worthy. Years of learning, of truth-seeking. It is honour and skill and patience. But Seier-magic, it is a pollution in the Tainted’s blood. A glimmer of old Snaka in their veins, the bloated god. It is not earned, like my power.” Skalk shook his head. “There is no honour in it, no skill. It is just in them.”
“And why is that so bad?” Varg said.
Yrsa snorted, giving a twist of her lips, and Skalk just stared, speechless for long moments. He sat up straighter. “The gods almost destroyed this earth,” he said, as if speaking to a child. “Almost destroyed us, mankind. And their offspring are no better. They fought in that war too.”
“So did humankind,” Sulich said, not breaking the scrape of his seax across his head.
“They were forced, little different than thralls,” Skalk said. “But the Tainted, they chose to fight, wanted to fight, just as their cursed parents did.” He stared at Vol as he spoke. “Cursed blood flows in them. That is why when mankind rose from the ashes of the Guefalla they swore to hunt out any of the gods who survived the gods-fall, and to hunt out their seed, their mingling with humankind. It was only when Ulfrir’s chain was found that we began to thrall the Tainted, rather than execute them.”
“Ulfrir’s chain?” Varg asked. Tales had been told at Kolskegg’s farm, round the fire pit and food table, but from an early age he and Fr?ya had learned it was best to keep apart from the others. He only knew some of the tales.
“Ulfrir the wolf-god was chained on the last day,” Yrsa said. “A rune-wrought chain, filled with Seier-magic by Lik-Rifa, the dragon, Ulfrir’s sister. It bound him tight and cast him down, and then Lik-Rifa’s followers swarmed upon him and slew him with many wounds.”