“Aye, I have heard that tale,” Varg said.
“And when Snaka was slain and fell, he broke the world,” Yrsa said. “The chain was broken, links and shards hurled in a thousand different directions.”
“That is right,” Skalk agreed, taking up the tale again. “And many years later, as humankind began to spread through the world again, we found some of those links, buried in the ground, half-submerged in rivers or fjords, and we used Galdur-magic to break them down, to mix them with iron and forge the thrall-collars. Wherever they were found, that is where the first fortresses grew. Darl, Snakavik, Svelgarth in the east. That thrall-collar around Vol’s neck, there is a remnant of Ulfrir’s chain forged into it. That is how she is controlled. The same with Queen Helka’s úlfhéenar, and with Jarl St?rr’s Berserkir. And the Galdur-tongue is used to command them. Glornir will have been taught the words of power when he bought that collar.”
“This is true.” Glornir nodded his agreement.
“I have always thought it a strange thing, to judge a man or woman by their parentage,” Sulich said, stopping the shaving of his head and sheathing his seax. “Far better to judge them on their deeds, to my mind.”
Skalk’s eyes snapped from Vol to Sulich.
“A strange thing for an escaped murderer to say,” Skalk said. “Am I to judge you on your deeds?”
Sulich looked at him, stood and strode towards Skalk.
“I am no murderer,” he said, his voice cold and hard.
Olvir and Yrsa stood, their hands hovering over their sword hilts.
“That is not what Prince Jaromir said,” Skalk answered, still sitting, calm and relaxed.
Sulich stood a few paces from him, Olvir and Yrsa ready.
“I am no murderer,” he repeated.
Skalk shrugged. “A matter we shall resolve, when this is done and we are back in Darl.”
“Sulich,” Glornir said. “Sit down.”
The shaven-haired warrior turned and looked at Glornir, then strode back to Einar.
Varg felt the hairs on his arms prickling. He knew that violence had been a hair’s breadth away.
They heard the sound of footsteps in the trees and all of them looked, hands reaching for weapons, an expression of the tension bubbling within the camp.
Svik walked out of the woods and stopped.
“What?” he said, looking around.
CHAPTER FORTY
ORKA
Orka walked along a dirt track, leading her horse by the reins, a solidly built skewbald gelding called Trúr. Mord and Lif walked either side of her with their own mounts, Mord with his injured arm bound from the wound Skefil had given him. Blood seeped into a linen bandage and he held the arm close to his body. The sun was climbing into the sky, the fresh chill of dawn still lingering. Wisps of mist curled upon the stream they were following, the fortress and town of Darl behind them.
They were travelling back to the farm they were lodging at, which lay nestled in the curl of a valley up ahead.
“What now, then?” Lif asked Orka. He had been mostly silent since the questioning and killing of Skefil.
“We think,” Orka said. “About our choices, what is possible, what is not, and then we come up with a deep-cunning plan that will put sharp steel into Guevarr and Jarl Sigrún, and see your father avenged.”
In truth all that Orka wanted to do was pack some provisions in a bag, leave Mord and Lif behind and ride north after Drekr. But she owed these brothers a blood-debt and that was weighing on her soul. She knew that she should help them achieve their vengeance, especially while Drekr was no longer in Darl to kill but Guevarr and Jarl Sigrún were, so it made sense in her thought-cage to put them in the ground first, before she went in pursuit of Drekr.
But the thought of Breca was like a splinter in her heart. His face haunted her; his voice whispered in her ear. Her son: taken, scared, hurt. It set a wolf snarling in her blood.
“What is wrong?” Mord asked her.
“What?” Orka said.
“You were growling, and your face was twitching.”
Orka blew out a long breath.
I will find you, Breca, I swear it, she thought. Every moment away from him clawed at her.
But I owe these two brothers.
As long as we can do it soon. I must be away from here soon.
“We must kill Guevarr and Sigrún, and quickly,” Orka said.
“Aye, I know that part,” Lif said. “It is the how that I am wondering about.”
Orka looked back over her shoulder. Darl lay behind them, the fortress silhouetted on the hill with the great eagle-wings spread wide, catching the risen sun and blazing golden, the River Drammur coiling about the town’s feet like a sleeping serpent. Meadows and rolling hills lay between the fortress and the farm they were staying upon, the meadows filled with fields of ripening barley and the hills dotted with herds of goats and sheep.