Orka ran to Mord, limping with one leg numb and ice-touched. Mord spun around, waving his spear at her.
“Come on,” Orka said, sheathing her seax and trying to get close to Lif so that she could throw him over her shoulder. Mord stared at her a moment, eyes manic. “Mord, we need to leave now,” Orka said to him, trying to keep her voice calm, as if it would drive out the fear and panic in his veins.
He is terrified, and yet has fought: has stood over his brother.
Mord sucked in a deep, quivering breath and lowered his spear.
Orka stooped and swept Lif up into her arms, hoisted him over her shoulder and turned to run.
Figures loomed out of the trees: a woman in wool and leather following a hound, and warriors behind her, some in mail. Mord raised his spear and stabbed at a mailed warrior, his blade grating up their chest and plunging into their throat. The warrior stumbled, gurgled and fell away. Mord stood there, staring as other warriors ran into the glade and circled him.
Orka hefted her axe and snarled, moving to cut a gap in the warriors around Mord.
There were hooves behind her and she turned and saw the blond man, his staff swinging at her. A crunch to the side of her head and she was spinning, Lif falling from her grasp, the ground rushing up to greet her.
CHAPTER FIFTY
ELVAR
Elvar shrugged her shield from her back and hefted it. All about her the Battle-Grim were doing the same as Ilska’s Raven-Feeders spilled over the ridge.
“To me,” Agnar called, warriors moving, checking weapons, buckling helms. Elvar saw Agnar appraising the land. He shouted orders and warriors were jumping on to the driving benches of the carts, cracking whips and reins, the carts rolling into a new position.
“HERE, ON ME!” Agnar yelled, standing between the carts and the huge mound that Elvar thought was Ulfrir-wolf. The Battle-Grim drew up behind Agnar, roughly two rows of twenty warriors, Agnar in the centre of the front row. Elvar pushed through to stand at his left, Grend taking his place at Elvar’s side, his shield hanging loose. She saw Huld and Sólín in the front row, sword and long seax in their fists, and felt Biórr’s hand on her shoulder behind her. She glanced back and smiled at him, though he looked grim, the flutter of coming battle in his eyes, fear and anger mixed. There was a tremor in his spear. Warriors with long-axes and spears stood in the second row, with more room for stabbing or hacking over the heads of those in the front.
“What’s happening?” Sighvat called out, struggling in his bonds, trying to twist his head.
Agnar unbuckled the brooch of his bearskin cloak, folded it over his arm and walked to the nearest wagon, carefully draped it over the cart’s bench, then walked back to the centre of their line.
Behind them Elvar heard V?rn moving, the unsettling rustle and creak of branches. The Froa-spirit was climbing up on to the head of her dead mother.
“A battle? Excellent,” V?rn said as she sat and made herself comfortable from her vantage point. “You have no idea how boring the last three hundred years have been.”
“A battle!” Sighvat cried. “Let me up.” He struggled, twisting and writhing.
“Be silent, fat man,” V?rn called down to him. A muttered word from her and a vine snaked over his mouth and pulled tight.
Ilska and her warriors were closer, now, and the Battle-Grim stood in silence as they approached through the snow, across the plain of ash and bones. Fifteen riders rode at their head, all in oiled brynjas, all with raven-black hair. Maybe three-score warriors marched after them, and behind them rolled a dozen carts, warriors sitting on their benches, linen covers stretched upon the cart-bed’s frames, hiding what was held within.
Ilska rode at their head, black hair wind-whipped behind her, like her raven-winged banner. She wore a fine brynja and held a spear in her fist, her sword and helm hanging at her belt, a dark cloak across her shoulders and a round shield slung across her back. Either side of her rode two men, both in coats of mail, both dark haired, like Ilska, the look of kin about them.
Brothers to Ilska? Elvar wondered. One of them Elvar had seen before, standing in the stern of the Raven-Feeders’ drakkar as it had rowed out of Snakavik’s harbour: a warrior, tall and hulking, with the sides of his head shaved like Agnar’s and a long-axe in his fist. That axe was slung over his back now. The other warrior was black-haired and hunched with muscle, clothed in mail with a hand-axe hanging at his belt. His face had four livid scars running through it, as if he had been clawed by a bear.
Ilska raised a hand and the riders reined their mounts in, the warband and carts behind them rippling to a halt. The warriors spread behind her, forming a loose line, wider and deeper than the Battle-Grim. Ilska dismounted, handing her reins to a warrior in the line behind her and walked forwards, the two men either side of her dismounting and following after her.