Varg ran his tongue around his mouth, could still taste blood. Not his own.
J?kul took a water bottle from his belt and handed it to him.
Varg swilled it around his mouth and spat it out, then drank some. He handed the bottle back to J?kul, who pushed the bowl of porridge at him.
“Eat. It will help.”
Varg sniffed the porridge and his belly growled. He began to eat.
“It is a shock, and no denying,” J?kul said. “I remember when I discovered the truth: descended from Gr?fu the badger.” He shook his head and was quiet a while, then sighed. “But you must deal with this, and quickly. We have Vol to find and Torvik to avenge.”
Varg looked at him and felt those words light a spark in his soul.
Svik walked out of the tunnel entrance, Edel and R?kia with him. They saw Varg and J?kul and made straight for them. Sat around him.
“Cheer up,” Svik said, smiling. “I know you are probably jealous and wish that you were descended from Refur the Handsome as I am, but you cannot have everything.” He shrugged.
Varg glared at them. “You have all deceived me, kept it hidden for so long.”
“You have been watched with a close eye,” Edel said. She shrugged. “We have to be careful. If word spread of what we are, we would become the hunted, not the hunters. We had to know that you could be trusted. If we had told you and you had left,” she shrugged. “Vigrie is not a safe place for the Tainted.”
“Being Tainted does not mean you are Bloodsworn,” Svik said, his smile gone. “We are not the only Tainted in the land, or the only warband of Tainted. And not all of them are as… agreeable, as us.” He leaned forward and held Varg’s eye. “It was not enough for us to know that you are Tainted. We had to know what kind of man you are, in here.” He poked Varg in the chest. “An oath-keeper, or an oath-breaker?”
Varg bowed his head, feeling a rush of shame, remembering how close he came to accepting Skalk’s offer.
But I did not go. I am here.
“And now we know,” R?kia said. She smiled again, which Varg found disconcerting. He was not used to seeing that expression on her face, except when she had put his arse on the ground or given him a new bruise.
“You will have many questions,” Svik said, staring intensely at Varg, “and we shall try to answer them all. But before all of that, you must hear this. We are the Bloodsworn, closer than kin. A brotherhood, a sisterhood: we live and die together. You have not sworn the oath, yet, but you are one of us. Of that I am sure.”
That was not a thought that Varg could fully comprehend. All of his life he had been alone, apart from Fr?ya. They had kept the flicker of life burning in each other’s hearts. Their only kin, their only home was each other.
“But before your questions, we need to know what happened with Skalk. Tell us everything that happened,” Edel asked him.
Varg took a deep breath, pushing away the questions that were buzzing in his thought-cage like bees after pollen, and he began to speak.
“That is all I remember,” Varg said and blew out a long breath.
Svik, R?kia, Edel and J?kul sat there in silence.
“Good that you slew that snivelling arseling, Olvir,” J?kul said.
R?kia stood up and walked away, across the muddy glade.
Einar emerged from the tunnel entrance. He saw Varg and the others and approached them, walking around the troll’s corpse.
“Not one of your kin, I hope,” Svik called out to the big man.
Einar just shook his head. “Svik is only joking. I am not really a half-troll,” he said to Varg. “I am just big-boned.”
“Glornir?” Edel asked Einar.
“He is in his right mind,” Einar said. “He is coming.”
Svik got up and strode into the tunnel.
Einar looked at Varg. “So, Biter, are you all right?”
Varg looked up at him, not even knowing how to answer that.
R?kia walked back to them. She carried a bundle of mail tied with rope, and a helm. When she reached them, she dropped the mail and helm at Varg’s feet.
“This is yours, earned in the battle-fray with your blood and valour.”
It was the red-eyed man’s brynja, and his helm.
“You have won yourself quite the collection, since you have walked with the Bloodsworn,” Edel said. She tugged on the ear of one of her wolfhounds and it licked her arm.
“You have,” Einar said. “I think we are bringing you good luck.”
Varg put a hand to his ribs, where the red-eyed man had struck him.