“Take it,” Orka told Lif as she climbed back into her saddle, leaned and patted her gelding’s neck, then clicked him on.
“That’s bought us some time,” Orka said, looking east and west along the ravine as Mord and Lif rode up alongside her, Lif holding his new spear. The ravine curled into the distance, meaning Guevarr and his drengrs would have to travel some distance to find another crossing point, and then travel back here to pick up their trail.
“Will they give up?” Lif asked.
“I hope not,” Orka said.
Behind them, from beyond the flames and smoke they heard a frustrated, furious screech.
“Why not?” Lif asked.
“Because I want Guevarr to follow us, so that you can kill him,” she said.
“I like it,” Mord said, a smile spreading across his face. He frowned. “Follow us where?”
“North, to chase my vengeance, as your vengeance chases us,” she said, a cold smile touching her lips. “We are riding there. To the Boneback Mountains; to the Grimholt Pass.”
To find Drekr and my son.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
VARG
Varg crawled up a slope of patchy, frost-hard grass and thin soil, the Bloodsworn all about him. Ahead Edel, Torvik and her scouts were all crouched behind a rock. Edel was whispering to Glornir as they peered over the slope’s rim. The sun hovered over the peaks of the Boneback Mountains, but its touch had not yet reached the valley they were crawling through, shadows clinging to the valley floor, thick as mist.
The slope’s rim was close and Varg shuffled for a space as the Bloodsworn spread along it, all looking down into the valley beyond. Crawling up a slope like a lizard was not so easy to do with a shield on your back, a weapons belt about your waist and a spear in your fist. Einar Half-Troll took up more space than a boulder on the slope’s rim, but he looked back and beckoned to Varg, glowering at another Bloodsworn who was about to fill the space at Einar’s right. Varg scrambled up the remaining distance and settled beside Einar, who smiled at Varg and put a big finger to his lips. Einar had seemed to take a liking to him, ever since the oar-dance and Varg’s apology. He had even offered to share his loaf of bread at their last meal. Varg had gratefully accepted: anything was better than leather-hard mutton.
A valley opened up, steep-sloped, running north to south, with what looked like a well-used track cutting away to the east. A waterfall filled the northern edge of the valley, cascading down from a cliff face that Varg had to twist his head to see. A permanent cloud of mist swirled and churned at the waterfall’s foot, a pool spreading wide and breaking off into a handful of channels.
Three days had passed since Edel had found the corpses hanging from the trees, and with every step Varg had felt a mounting tension. There had been a war going on in his thought-cage about whether to talk to Skalk again about the conduction of an akáll, or whether he should wait for Glornir’s approval. Seeing Skalk’s conjuring of fire in his fist had only added to his confusion. It was only a single flame, but to Varg it had chilled his blood. But as they had travelled deeper into the Boneback Mountains that conflict had faded in his mind, overwhelmed by a growing sensation: a trembling in his blood. It was almost as if he could smell or sense a growing danger, like drawing closer to a rotting corpse.
The valley’s floor was in twilight shadow, but as Varg lay there the sun rose higher and light slid down the slopes like liquid gold, and the darkness retreated before it. The streams in the valley burst into glittering, blinding light. Varg heard Edel speaking in hushed tones to Glornir and Vol. Edel’s two wolfhounds were crouched, ears pricked forwards. One was growling. Edel pointed.
Varg saw movement: a figure appearing deep in the valley close to the waterfall. Even from this height Varg could tell that it was big. Muscled and antlered, with thick tusks jutting from its lower jaw, it emerged from a stand of pine trees and walked to the pool.
“What is that?” Varg hissed.
“Troll,” Einar said in his rumbling whisper.
The troll stopped at the pool’s edge and looked around, scanning the valley’s sides. It seemed to sniff the air and Varg felt a moment of fear, that they would be seen or that somehow this creature would pick up their scent. Then it was looking back to the pine trees and gesturing. A line of people emerged from the treeline, smaller than the troll. They were humans, and Varg saw the glint of sunlight on iron, chains about their necks and ankles, binding them to each other. Maybe thirty or forty people filed out from the trees to the pool, all with buckets in their hands. More figures appeared, a few manlike in shape, with spears in their hands, the glint of sunlight on mail. Others were clearly not human: thick-muscled and elongated, crouched and stooped, walking upright but bent over, using knuckles on unnaturally long arms. Weapons hung from baldrics slung across their shoulders.