The steading was attacked and Thorkel retreated to the hall, barred the gates. They set fire to the hall and smashed the doors in. Thorkel held them there, where it is narrowest, rather than let them in.
She bounded up the steps, glancing at the corpses as she stepped over them. A man and woman dressed in woodland leathers and fur. Both bore savage red wounds, deep as bone. Inside the hall rush-reeds were burning in patches on the floor, fiery lumps dropping from the burning roof and exploding on the ground into eruptions of sparks and flame.
Two more dead in the hall; a trail of the dead leading towards a mound of figures piled on the ground, back by the hearth fire.
She ran through the hall, swerving around patches of flame, through thick smoke until she was standing over the bodies.
Five or six corpses, men and women intertangled, limbs splayed, great wounds gaping. One man with a long-axe still embedded in his head, skull split open from crown to chin. Others looked like they had been torn apart, ripped with tooth and claw.
Thorkel lay at their centre.
The hilts of two seaxes protruded from his torso, one high in his chest, one in his belly. He was covered in blood, from his own wounds as well as those lying dead around him. His chest was still moving, blood speckling his lips with shallow, ragged breaths.
“Breca?” she said to him, but he did not respond.
“BRECA!” Orka bellowed, turning in a circle, frantically scanning the room, but she only heard the crackle of flame, the creak of the hall’s timbers. She grabbed bodies, pulled them away from Thorkel, searching for her son. She saw a smaller form beneath a woman, dragged her free and saw Vesli, the tennúr. The vaesen lay still, wings loose, face and head slick with blood.
Thorkel’s eyes flickered open and he saw her.
“They took Breca,” he grunted, a line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Orka stooped and slid her arms under his shoulders, hands gripping him, and she pulled, dragging him from the hall. He tried to speak, but his voice was a wheeze that she could not hear over the flames.
Suddenly there was a ripping, tearing sound and a portion of the roof gave way, collapsing inwards, a crash and an explosion of flames, a glimpse of blue sky above. The hall creaked, timbers protesting, flames crackling, smoke billowing, a waterfall of sparks cascading around Orka.
She dragged Thorkel out of the hall, down the steps and lay him on the ground. He was ashen, the blood on his lips bright and stark against alabaster skin. Orka kneeled beside him, held his head, stroked sweat-stuck hair from his face, fear a fist clenching around her heart.
Thorkel’s eyes fixed on hers.
“They took him,” Thorkel breathed again, fresh blood on his lips. “I could not stop them.” A pause, a spasm of pain twisted his lips as he took ragged breaths. “I tried.”
“I will get him back,” Orka said, fury and fear swirling in her blood. She wanted to run and chase after her son, to find him and hold him, to rip and kill and tear those who had taken him, to stamp on their skulls and claw the throats from those who had done this to her Thorkel. But she could not leave his side.
Thorkel’s lips moved, breath hissing, and Orka leaned closer.
“Dragon-born,” he grunted through clenched teeth, red-flecked spittle on his lips and chin as his body stiffened with a convulsion of pain.
“Breathe. Keep breathing,” Orka said: a command, a plea, to Thorkel’s failing body.
“I am… sorry,” Thorkel said, his voice little more than a sigh. His fingers twitched, reaching for her. And then he was gone.
“No,” Orka said, a whisper as she gripped his hand, shook her head. Tears blurred her vision, her jaw and throat tight, constricted. Hard to breathe. “No, no, no, no, NO!” she screamed, lifting her head and howling at the smoke-smeared sky.
Orka lay Thorkel’s head on the ground, stroked his lips with her fingertips and then wiped his blood across her face, from forehead to chin in ragged stripes. Slowly she stood, a cold wind searing through her heart. She checked her weapons belt, palms brushing the hilt of her seax and small axe, then looked about for her spear before remembering she had dropped it in the hall to carry Thorkel. With fast, deliberate steps she strode back into the hall, held her breath and plunged through thick smoke, back to the pile of bodies around the hearth fire. She grasped her spear and heard a sound, a hiss, and saw that the tennúr Vesli was moving. Orka swept the tennúr up. The vaesen’s eyes were open, though unfocused.
One more thing.
She strode to Thorkel’s long-axe, the blade buried in a man’s skull, put a boot on the corpse and ripped the axe free, then she ran from the hall, timber pillars cracking, splintering, caving in.