Varg realised where the scream had come from.
Vol stepped forwards, one hand raised. She moved in front of Glornir, drawing a seax and slicing it across her hand, shouting words Varg did not understand.
“Bein af tví gamla, tú munt ekki fara framhjá,” she screamed, spittle flying from her mouth, at the same time her bloodied hand tracing shapes in the air. Glowing fire flickered and rippled into life, sharp, straight lines appearing in the air, a Seier-rune forming in blood and flame above Glornir, glowing red and orange as the bone sword sliced towards his head. The bone blade met the rune and there was a burst of incandescent light, blinding Varg for a moment. He blinked, his vision returning to see that the bone sword had slowed, as if moving through water, then stopped, stuck halfway through the flaming Seier-rune, as if the red-eyed man had chopped his blade deep into timber and could not wrench it free. His body strained with the blade, muscles in his arms bunching, and Varg saw him grunting and hissing words that Varg could not hear.
Vol snarled back at him, leaning into the Seier-rune as if it were her shield in a shield wall, her hand up, palm pressed flat to it, her face twisted in a grimace of pain, lips moving, words pouring from her in a constant flow.
All around them Bloodsworn were trying to reach them, fighting furiously with the handful of warriors who had followed the red-eyed man.
The bone sword shifted, ripples of power washing out from it. The Seier-rune flickered and flared, like a stuttering torch as the bone sword began to move again, cutting through the flames.
“Gueir bein brjóta tig, kló t?ta tig,” the red-eyed man bellowed, spittle flying from his mouth, muscles in his face twitching and writhing, veins bulging, and the Seier-rune exploded. Vol was hurled backwards, crashing into Glornir, both of them thrown to the ground, and the red-eyed man stepped over them and raised his sword again.
The rage that had pulsed in Varg’s belly flared bright, fuelled by his fear, white and blinding in his head. He snarled and ran, hands grasping at his weapons belt, drawing his axe and cleaver. Leaped.
The red-eyed man paused, sword held high, and looked back over his shoulder. Saw Varg hurtling towards him, twisted.
Varg slammed into him, chopping and hacking with axe and cleaver, the two of them falling, rolling. Varg came to a stop, scrabbling for purchase, the fire in his blood sweeping him, burning in his veins. The red-eyed man bellowed, heaved Varg away and stumbled to his feet.
Varg rolled to a halt, the red mist in his head pulsing with his every heartbeat, urging him to kill and rend. When he fought in the pugil-ring the red mist had energised him, given him a rush of adrenalin-fuelled strength and speed, a clarity of thought and an instinctive knowledge that he would never give in. But he had always restrained it, known that to surrender to it would mean the death of his opponent. It was as if he kept a pit-hound on a leash. But here, now, this was to death, everything that mattered in his life coming down to this moment, to the next few heartbeats. Without conscious thought he released the pit-hound in his soul.
He half stood, realising he had lost his axe but still held the cleaver. He looked at the red-eyed man, seeing him with too-sharp clarity, all around them faded to blurred shapes that fought and screamed and bled. The red-eyed man fixed Varg with his glare that turned to a look of surprise.
His helm had been knocked loose by Varg. He was old, his grey beard braided, his head shaved. Blood flowed down one side of his face from a gash along the side of his head, skin flapping. He had lost a grip on the bone sword, red eyes searching for it, then he found it and lunged, sweeping it up as Varg scrambled to his feet and threw himself at the old man again, his cleaver raised high in a downwards slash, his teeth bared in a rictus snarl. Dimly, he thought he heard a wolf growling.
The red-eyed man swung his sword in a horizontal slash.
Varg’s cleaver crunched into the red-eyed man’s head, deep, wedged, blood and bone spraying, his body jerking and spasming, his strength vanishing in a heartbeat, but the momentum of his sword swing kept the bone sword moving. It connected with Varg’s waist.
A searing pain, white light and Varg howled. Then darkness.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
ELVAR
Elvar walked through a land of mist-shrouded vales and rolling hills freckled with woodland. Ash, elm, oak and linden grew in swathes and copses. Streams gurgled, crows squawked in branches and at night wolves howled and foxes screeched.
And these are the Dark-of-Moon Hills, sung of by skálds throughout the land for three hundred years.
They are no different from the land south of the Boneback Mountains.