“When you’re ready, girl,” Sighvat grunted and together they slipped Grend from the cart’s back, Elvar taking the weight of Grend’s ankles and Sighvat gripping the unconscious warrior under the shoulders. Together they placed him upon a woollen cloak that Elvar had laid on the ground, and Elvar checked his wounds.
After they had crossed the Isbrún Bridge they had stopped to tend to injuries and take a tally of the wounded and their losses. One wagon and two ponies had been lost, loaded with bundled spears and an assortment of barrels of ale and of horsemeat and whey. Three of the Battle-Grim had fallen on the hillock to the tennúr swarm.
Almost everyone was injured, from a few scratches to gaping wounds torn by the vaesen’s claws. All had needed to clean their wounds with boiled water and vinegar; some were stitched, and poultices of yarrow and honey were applied, draped in moss and wrapped in linen bandages. Agnar had ordered a fire to be lit as some wounds had needed to be cauterised.
“My thanks, Sighvat,” Elvar said as she kneeled beside Grend. The big man stood and looked at Grend, then patted her shoulder, almost sending her sprawling, and walked away.
Fresh blood had seeped into the bandage around Grend’s head. He was scratched and gouged across his legs and face, but the worst injury was the blow to the back of his head that a tennúr had dealt him with a lump of black rock. Uspa had come to Elvar’s aid when they had stopped after crossing the bridge. Elvar had been trying to clean the wound and examine how bad it was. Tears had been blurring her eyes. The Seier-witch cut away Grend’s blood-matted hair with a sharp knife, then helped Elvar wash the area clean. All the while Elvar had felt as if a fist of fear was clenched in her belly, twisting her innards and making her movements too quick and jolting. The feeling intensified as Uspa probed Grend’s skull with her fingertips.
“His skull is not broken,” Uspa had pronounced, after what felt like a lifetime.
Elvar had sagged with relief.
Uspa helped her to finish cleaning the wound, then to apply a poultice of herbs and moss and bind it with a bandage.
“When he wakes up, he will need to drink some peppermint and valerian,” Uspa had said as she’d left to tend the wounds of other injured Battle-Grim.
Grend had remained unconscious through the whole process, and so when Agnar had shouted for all to make ready and move out, Grend had been strapped within an empty cart.
Then they had moved out, Uspa leading them into an untouched world. Elvar was not sure how long they’d been marching through this land, the perpetual daylight playing tricks in her thought-cage, but she guessed it was about half a day.
“How is he?” a voice said behind her and Elvar looked up to see Agnar. His face and the side of his shaved head was raked with claw marks. They were not too deep and were clotting now. He kneeled down beside her, offering a plate of pickled herring and fried cabbage, and a pot of skyr.
“He hasn’t woken,” Elvar said as she untied the linen bandage from around Grend’s head and checked the wound. The poultice was still in place.
Agnar leaned forward, close to Grend, and sniffed.
“Doesn’t smell bad,” he said, “which is always a good sign.” He patted Elvar’s arm. “He’ll wake when his body is ready.”
Elvar sniffed and blinked away a tear that threatened to spill out of her eye.
“We are the Battle-Grim,” Agnar said quietly. “Our life is blood and battle. None of us are likely to die old and grey in our beds.” His words were gentle, and Elvar knew the truth of them, but she struggled to keep a sob from forcing its way out of her throat.
“I know that,” she murmured, speaking slowly to keep her voice steady. “I have travelled and fought with the Battle-Grim for years now, and seen death’s wings hover over us a thousand times. I know that the raven-wings do not care who they take, do not distinguish between rich or poor, kind or cruel. But always Grend has been at my side or guarding my back. He has never been injured once, not even a scratch, so to see him like this, so fragile…”
“Aye,” Agnar nodded. “Death is our constant companion, a whisper in our ear, but when you see a friend fall…” He shook his head. “Nothing prepares us for it, even though we’ve waded through a river of the dead.”
He looked at her. “That is why we fight so hard for each other. We do not abandon the living. We do not abandon those we have sworn oaths to.”
“You were coming back for me,” Elvar said, “when Grend fell and I stood over him, I thought that our death was upon us.”