Guevarr had started to ride up the track towards them, Orka able to see his dripping, pointed nose, and close behind him rode Arild, the drengr who always seemed to accompany Guevarr. She wore a brynja that gleamed in the sun, whereas Orka had only seen her in wool and leather before. The warriors that followed behind them were also clothed in mail with iron helms, all drengrs with sword skill and weapons craft.
Orka looked back to Mord and Lif, still standing, holding their horses by their reins, just staring. They wore wool and leather, armed with seaxes and axes, Mord with a fishing spear, no helms. And they were hesitating.
Orka made the decision for them.
“We ride,” she said, dragging on her reins and touching Trúr’s ribs with her heels. She saw Lif clamber into his saddle and Mord lingered a moment, his face twitching, then he was heaving himself on to his horse’s back with a grimace of pain at his injured arm and the three of them were riding away, back along the track they’d been travelling on.
The sound of hooves came behind them, like rumbling thunder, and Guevarr’s squeaking voice. Orka rounded the spur that hid the farm from view, her gelding moving at a fast canter, Mord and Lif catching her up. Ahead Darl reared, the river massed with a forest of masts. Soon the farm track joined a road with a few people upon it: carts pulled by oxen, other travellers.
Going back to Darl is not a good idea. It would be like riding into the wolf’s jaws, with Helka’s drengrs before us and Guevarr and his crew behind us.
A crossroad loomed ahead, straight on to Darl, south to the river, north to…
The Boneback Mountains.
They reared in the distance like jagged teeth, a gap in their profile marking where the Grimholt Pass lay.
Orka pulled on her reins and nudged with her leg and Trúr turned, heading north. Mord shouted after Orka, but the wind dragged the words away and Orka ignored them, seeing that he and his brother followed her. There were more shouts behind them as Guevarr cleared the spur of land and saw them. He was only two hundred paces behind now, screeching and kicking his horse into a lathered gallop. Drengrs swarmed behind him.
Orka lifted her weight in her saddle and kicked Trúr on. He was a strong, big-boned gelding, built more for the plough or battle rather than speed, but he had a big heart and Orka could feel the joy in him at the gallop. Trúr’s stride opened up and it felt to Orka like she was flying, wind whipping tears from her eyes as they sped across rolling meadows of heather and gorse.
This is what it must have felt like to be one of Orna’s daughters, Orka thought, to fly and rule the skies, and she whooped with the joy of it. They rode on, the terrain changing about them as they moved away from the River Drammur. A gap widened between them and Guevarr’s crew, four hundred paces, five hundred, the drengrs riding more carefully than Orka and the two brothers. The land rose, hills swelling around them, covered in fern and heather and patches of woodland, dissected by a myriad of streams. The path narrowed, slopes rising, and Orka heard the sound of rushing water. Then a wooden bridge was before them, narrow, crossing over a ravine. Orka pulled on her reins, shifting her position, and Trúr slowed, moving from a gallop to a canter. She heard the thunder of hooves on timber as she crossed the bridge, Mord and Lif slowing, taking the bridge one at a time.
Orka looked down and saw steep-sided slopes and a white-foaming river perhaps forty or fifty paces below her. She reached the far side of the bridge and dragged on her reins, leaped from her saddle and ran to a lightning-blasted hawthorn tree. She swept her axe into her fist and chopped at wood, dry-splintering as branches snapped.
Mord and Lif reached the far side of the bridge and reined their horses in, Lif calling to Orka, Mord staring back over his shoulder. Hooves thundered, the sound of Guevarr and his drengrs far closer than Orka wanted them to be.
Orka swept the splintered branches up into her arms, ran back to the bridge and threw them down on the timber, then crouched and took her tinder and kindling from a pouch on her belt, her striking iron. Sparks leaped, the kindling hissing into flame among the dry branches. Fire crackled, flames clawing, and the hawthorn branches burst into fire, the timber of the bridge beginning to blacken and smoke. Orka stood, looking between the new-kindled flames and the far side of the bridge. Guevarr appeared around a bend in the slope. He saw Orka and the others and spurred his mount on. It was sweat-soaked and salt-streaked, foam flying from its mouth. Guevarr yelled a victory cry, grinning as he looked at Orka, Mord and Lif. Then he saw the flames. They were spreading now, along the timber walkway and up the posts and rails. Black clouds of smoke billowed, obscuring Guevarr and the drengrs from view. Hooves thudded on timber as Guevarr attempted to cross, but timber creaked, weakened by the flames, followed by a splintering, cracking sound, and Guevarr retreated. He sat on his horse and hurled insults across the bridge at them. A spear hissed from one of his drengrs, and it thumped into the ground close to Lif’s mount.