Leif laughed.
“You are Varg the thrall, and you are my thrall, now. My property. You belong to me. Leif Kolskeggson; son of the man you murdered.” Leif glanced at one of the men beside him. “Put a collar and chain on this dog.” He touched his spear tip to Varg’s chest, traced it over his torso, then slowly slid the blade’s edge across Varg’s ribs, a line of blood welling. “I am going to bleed you, but death would be too much of a kindness to you,” Leif said. He stabbed his spear into the ground and squatted down beside Varg, checking him over for weapons. There was a chink of metal as Leif reached inside Varg’s cloak and pulled out the bag of coin.
“Stolen from my father, no doubt,” Leif said and spat in Varg’s face. “I am going to chain you to my horse and drag you all the way back to my farm-steading,” he said slowly, taking care over his words, anger putting a tremor into them. “Once there you will have the lash, until you can no longer stand. Until I have seen your bones. And then I shall put you back to work. For me. Making me coin for the rest of your stinking, miserable life.”
Varg twisted and writhed, heaved one hand free. Booted kicks rained in, curling him up. He lay their gasping.
“My leg,” a voice whimpered close by, the man Varg had struck with his cleaver. The blade was still embedded in his leg.
“Bastard thrall’s cut me, broken my ribs,” another voice wheezed: the woman, sitting propped against a tree, one hand pressed to a black glistening wound in her side. Leif stood, walked over to the man and leaned down, grabbed the cleaver’s wooden handle and wrenched it free of the injured warrior’s leg, eliciting a high-pitched scream. “Orl, tend to their wounds,” Leif ordered the man still sitting close to the fire, patting his hound down. The flames were out, patches of fur blackened, the hound whining. Orl stood and moved to the injured man and woman, giving Varg a dismayed look. He was old, his grey hair thin and lank, and he wore an iron collar around his throat.
“You hurt my old girl,” he muttered at Varg as he pulled a knife and kneeled beside the wounded woman, began cutting at her tunic and cleaning her wound. The hound limped after him.
Leif hefted the cleaver.
“Murdered my father,” Leif said, and slashed the cleaver through the air. “Slew three other freedmen.” Two more slashes of the cleaver, air whistling. “Now you injure two of my hird.” He pointed the cleaver at Varg. “I’ll give you part of your punishment now, I’m thinking. One for you to think over on the journey back to my steading.” He looked at the two men standing over Varg. “Pull his arm out; hold him tight.”
Varg stared at Leif, then at the two men as one gripped his hand, the other twisting his other arm up behind his back.
He’s going to cut my hand off.
Varg hurled himself against the men, straining and thrashing, but the man behind him held him tight, a white-hot pain lancing into his shoulder, his arm close to breaking. He collapsed, gasping.
“Don’t worry. When we get home, I’ll have Orl carve you a hand of wood, so you can still work on the farm,” Leif said, his lips twisting.
A sound behind Leif, of branches snapping. Leif paused, all of them staring into the darkness.
A man stepped out of the woodland, tall and broad, with a bald head and grey beard. A coat of mail shimmered in the moonlight. He held a bearded long-axe in both hands. Like a staff. There were shadows behind him, patches of deeper darkness. The silver-haired woman appeared, two wolfhounds at her side. They were snarling, hackles raised.
“Let him go,” the grey-beard said.
Leif raised the cleaver high.
The grey-beard moved, faster than Varg could track, and then Leif was doubled over, the cleaver falling to the ground. The men holding Varg burst into motion, reaching for their spears, stabbing at the grey-beard as Leif coughed and retched on his knees.
The wolfhounds leaped forwards, jaws latching on to the arm and leg of one man, dragging him to the ground.
A cracking sound and trees ruptured apart, Einar Half-Troll emerging, a punch sending one of Leif’s men hurtling through branches, disappearing into the darkness. Another figure darted past the grey-beard: Svik, the slim, red-haired man who had first spoken to Varg. His face was twisted in a snarl, his seax in his fist, cold iron gleaming. He swayed around a stabbing spear, stepped in close and ran the seax-blade along the spear shaft, slicing. A scream and severed fingers fell to the ground. The spear dropped and the slim man grabbed the screaming warrior by his woollen tunic, dragged him forward and headbutted him. He fell with a gurgle.