“It will be a curse,” Uspa said bitterly.
“How can you say such a thing?” Elvar said. “What we find at Oskutree, it will bring us fame and wealth beyond all imagining.”
“You think so?” Uspa asked. “Perhaps, but I only see blood and death and misery coming from this. The gods are dead and forgotten here, and this is where they should stay. The gods were spoiled, selfish, violent siblings. To drag their bones, their weapons and treasures south to the land of men…” She made a sound deep in her throat, like a serpent hissing. “They will be a poison, infecting human hearts. It will start the whole bloody saga spinning again. Rivers of blood.”
“It does not have to be that way,” Elvar said. “It will be in our hands. Our choice.”
“Exactly,” Uspa spat. “Look around you. Petty men and women, dreaming of battle-fame, as if that were the greatest thing in life.”
“Well, it is,” Elvar said fiercely. “Men die, women die, all creatures of flesh and blood die, but battle-fame survives. To become a song, a saga-tale told from generation to generation. That way we will live for ever. That is what I want, what all of us want.”
“I know,” Uspa said, “which is why I pity you, Elvar St?rrsdottir.”
Grend shifted and growled in his throat.
“Easy, Elvar’s Hound,” Uspa said. “It was a sharp word, not a sharp blade.” She looked at Elvar, earnest and sad. “Battle-fame is nothing; it is chaff on the wind. Bonds of love, of kinship, of passion, of friendship: that is what we should all be yearning for. What you and Biórr are doing behind the wagons each night, now that is real. If you longed for that above battle-fame. If you loved and honoured your kin more than you wished for glory and saga-tales.” She shrugged. “The world would be a better place.”
“Not my kin,” Elvar said, glowering at Uspa, thoughts of her father’s disdainful face in her thought-cage, of her brother Thorun’s sneer. “My kin are not so easy to love, and would sell you as quick as look at you. And if you feel so strongly, then why are you guiding us to Oskutree?”
“For my son,” Uspa said, her shoulders slumping. “I am prepared to give up all I hold dear and important, all my fine principles, every great thing I have ever believed in, for my son.” Her lips twisted with self-loathing. “I am a hypocrite, you see. Because a mother’s love is a powerful thing. An instinct like no other. I would let the world drown in blood if it would mean my Bjarn was safe and back in my arms again.” She looked away.
“You are wrong,” Elvar said. “It is kin who are a curse. You cannot choose them; they are inflicted upon you. They are the poison.” She waved a hand. “Grend is closer to me than my father or brothers, and he is faithful, loyal. Good. He chose to walk that path, chose me, as I chose him. And those choices are paid back ten-fold with faithfulness and loyalty. But Grend is not my kin; the same blood does not flow in our veins. It is our choices that count. Look about you, at Agnar, Biórr, Sólín, the Battle-Grim: they are closer kin. Better. I choose them, not because of the shared blood in our veins, but because we have chosen each other. Because we have sworn our oaths. We stand shoulder to shoulder in the shield wall, live or die together.” She realised her heart was thumping and her knuckles were white, fists clenched. A deep-drawn breath, slowly exhaled.
“Our choices decide the future. Who we trust, who we love. And our choices will determine what comes of the treasures we find at Oskutree. Kin are not the answer. Blood is not the answer.”
Uspa looked at her with pity and sympathy in her eyes. She shook her head.
“To be young and naive,” she said. “Blood is always the answer.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
VARG
Sounds filtered into Varg’s thought-cage, gently, like dawn seeping into the world. The crackle of torches burning, echoing, the murmur of voices, indistinct. The dripping of water, rhythmic.
He realised he was cold. And that he hurt.
He opened his eyes.
A roof of stone, slick with moisture, shadows shifting on it. He saw figures moving, stooping, heard the rustle of hushed conversation.
“He’s awake.” A face filled Varg’s vision: Torvik, who grinned at him.
“I knew you’d live. I told them,” he said. “I told them. You’re a fighter, brother.”
“Live,” Varg croaked. Memories swirled in his thought-cage, of a red-eyed man, Glornir on his knees, bloodied, Vol screeching and flames in the air. A pale sword.