“Watch them with your hawk eyes,” Agnar muttered to Elvar as he halted on the beach, Elvar, Grend and Sighvat behind him, the rest of the warband spreading wide.
“SHIELDS!” Agnar called out and behind her Elvar heard the crunch of linden-wood slamming together, the shuffle and grate of boots on shingle as the line tightened.
“There is a man among you,” Agnar shouted. “Berak is his name. Tall, wide as a barn. Scars down one side of his face. A woman and child are with him. He would have arrived here maybe two or three days gone. Give him over to us, and your blood will not stain this beach.”
Elvar watched faces, saw fear in some, saw pride, animosity, anger in others.
Agnar pulled the tattered strip of wool from his belt and lifted it high.
“I will find him with or without your help. My Hundur-thrall has his scent. He will not escape me.” Agnar dropped the blood-crusted rag to the man at the end of Sighvat’s chain, who looked at the rag as if it were a poison.
Sighvat yanked on the chain around the thrall’s throat.
“Hlyea,” Agnar growled and a ripple of red veins tremored through the thrall’s collar.
The thrall whimpered, then picked up the rag and buried his face in it, snuffling and snorting.
“Your choice is to help or hinder,” Agnar continued. He looked at them all, pulled a pouch heavy with coin from his belt and cast it on the beach in front of him.
“Your choice is to prosper or die.” Agnar shrugged, as if he cared not which of those choices they made.
A tall man stepped forwards, wrapped in fur and sealskin, a spear in his fist, a long knife at his belt, the hilt carved from walrus ivory. His beard was braided many times and bound with bone rings.
“I am Hrut, Jarl of Iskalt,” the man said.
Jarl! Elvar thought, looking him up and down. Where is your gold or silver? Where is your sword, your mail? You would not be allowed in a jarl’s outhouse on the mainland.
“And I know of no Berak living upon my island,” Hrut said.
“You do know him,” Agnar said. “But you may not know that he is TAINTED!” He bellowed that last word, spittle flying. “He is gods-touched and will bring only blood and slaughter upon you. Do not protect such as he.”
Elvar saw movement towards the back of the crowd. A tall man with a spear and a cloak of stitched white-fox pelts draped across his shoulders was stooping to speak to a young girl at his side, surely little more than seven or eight winters. She nodded and scurried away across the beach, threading between the huts.
“There,” Elvar said to Agnar, pointing with her spear at the speeding child.
Agnar strode forwards, stepping around Hrut, but the jarl took a step to his right, placing himself in front of Agnar.
Agnar stopped, looking over his shoulder at Elvar.
“Follow the girl,” he said, then drew his sword and there was blood in the air. It was a move Elvar practised every day, turning the draw into a diagonal strike, from left to right. Agnar disguised the manoeuvre behind his shield, realisation dawning in Hrut’s eyes only as he saw the glint of steel. He had a moment to move his spear and stumble away, but Agnar’s sword sheared through the spear haft and on, the sword tip cutting into Hrut’s beard, slicing through his chin and lower lip. Blood sprayed, teeth flying.
Hrut bellowed with pain and rage and Agnar stepped in, his shield raised, sword stabbing.
The crowd behind Hrut yelled their outrage, many of them lowering spears and leaping forwards. Arrows hissed and whistled through the air.
Elvar burst into motion, bounding around Agnar and Hrut even as the Battle-Grim behind her yelled a war cry and advanced, weapons thumping on shields. There was a crunch of gravel behind, booted feet following her, and Elvar didn’t need to look to know it was Grend. She sprinted around the fringe of the crowd, all of them focused on Agnar and Hrut, rushing to defend their jarl. A man with a nocked bow curled around the flank of his kinsmen, drew and loosed at the Battle-Grim. A scream from the beach. Elvar swerved, the villager seeing her only a fraction before she slammed into him. Her shield boss crunched into the side of his head and he dropped like a cut sail.
Elvar stood over him, searched for the girl, saw where she had disappeared among the huts on the beach. She ran on.
There was a movement to her right and instinctively she ducked and swayed, twisting to bring her shield around.
A spear blade grated across her brynja, a spark of steel, then Elvar’s shield rim was slamming into the spear shaft, sending the woman wielding it stumbling away. Elvar chopped with her sword, cut deep across her attacker’s shoulder and back, slicing through fur and leather. Blood spurted and the woman yelled, staggering forwards, dropping to one knee. She swung her spear, the intent to hamstring Elvar, and then her head exploded, Grend’s axe crunching into it. The spear dropped with a clatter to the shingle. Grend snarled, ripped his blade free, blood and brains spattering his face. A shared look, then Elvar was running on. She glimpsed Sighvat and the thrall following behind Grend, and also Biórr.