Then Elvar was among the buildings, searching for any sign of the girl who had run from the beach. She stopped, holding her breath to listen. Screams drifted on the wind from behind her, the clang of iron. She shut it out, heard whispered voices, one deep, almost a growl, and she ran on. Twisting through a snarl of buildings, swerving around fishing nets hanging for repairs, she came to a door swinging on a hinge. A timber-framed hut to the rear of the village, the walls caked with clay and wattle and daub. It looked like it was only big enough for one room. Elvar slowed, hefted her shield, peered through the open door into shadowed darkness, glimpsed the soft glow of a fire. Grend skidded up next to her and Elvar gestured for him to circle around the back of the hut. A silent nod and then she was moving, kicking the door hard, to slam into anyone standing behind it as she burst into the room, shield raised, spear high, twisting to defend against any lurking attacker.
The hut was empty.
A fire pit had been scraped into hard earth in the centre of the hut, flames flickering. A pot hung over it, suspended from an iron chain. Fish stew bubbled. A table, three chairs, two straw beds. Elvar stabbed into the straw, then saw light leaking into the hut. A hole, low in the back wall, wide enough for a large man to crawl through.
Grend’s booted feet and grey-wool leg-wraps appeared.
Elvar kicked the wall, wattle and daub crumbling loose. Kicked again, more hard-packed clay falling, revealing the hazel rod wattle core. Grend’s axe swung and a section of the wall crumbled.
They stood there, staring at one another.
She heard heavy breathing and the clank of chains behind her. Sighvat and the thrall appeared, Sighvat pushing through the doorway, his bulk blocking out the light. The thrall dropped into a crawling squat, nose to the ground, snorting.
Biórr appeared, face flushed with battle and the sprint up the beach.
“Is it him?” Sighvat grunted at the thrall. The man on the end of the chain crawled over to the cot and buried his face in the straw, sniffing deeply. He looked up at Sighvat and nodded.
Footsteps. Agnar appeared in the doorway, his sword red to the hilt, warriors thick as smoke behind him.
He looked from Sighvat to the thrall.
“Where is he?” Agnar grunted.
Elvar pointed through the hole in the wall. Grend was searching the ground for tracks.
“That way,” the dour warrior said, straightening and pointing with his bloodied axe, towards the treeline and shadowed woods, Iskalt’s mountain of fire dark and brooding.
“After them,” Agnar said.
CHAPTER SIX
ORKA
Orka woke with a gasp. For a moment she did not know where she was, could only see a vivid picture in her mind, of blood and battle, bodies falling around her, the roar of the sea, the sounds of violence. The battle cries and death screams were sharp and as clear as if she were standing in the middle of the bloody conflict, rather than lying upon a sweat-soaked mattress of straw in her own steading. She stared at the timber beams above and took a long, ragged breath as recognition seeped into her. As the tension eased, she loosened her white-knuckled fist around a clump of her mattress.
The grey of dawn crept through shutters. Thorkel slept beside her, his hairy back to her, one foot out of the woollen blanket. His chest rose and fell in slow, gentle rhythm, a rumbling snore deep in his throat. Orka reached out to touch him, fingertips hovering over his skin.
Let him sleep. Why burden him with my weakness.
She withdrew her arm and swung her feet over the side of the bed. Sat there a while, head in hands, allowing her body to settle and the sweat to dry. She wished there was a jug of mead or ale at the bedside, felt the need for it in her bones. To dull the memories, the pain. She felt a flash of resentment towards Thorkel, as he had asked her to drink less. Then she pulled on a pair of woollen breeches, leather boots and a linen tunic, and padded across the room, opening the door slowly so as not to wake Thorkel. Her thought was to start a hearth fire and then wake Thorkel and Breca with some porridge, honey and cream, but as she walked into the hall of their cabin, which took up most of the building, apart from hers and Thorkel’s bedchamber, she knew something was wrong, like a tingling in her blood.
Where’s Breca?
She looked to his cot, close to the burned-out hearth fire, where he liked to go to sleep with the blurred glow and crackle of embers in his eyes and ears.
It was empty, the woollen blanket thrown off.
A trickle of ice in her veins; worry fluttering like wings in her chest.
“Breca,” she called as she searched the hall, quickly looking behind tables, piled blankets, in cupboards. There was a sound behind her as Thorkel emerged from their chamber, barefoot, with breeches on and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was blinking, the muscles in his face not yet caught up with the fact that he was awake.