“This is yours now,” Glornir said, and threw the spear to Varg. He managed to catch it without fumbling it.
“It belonged to Aslog, whose seat on the oar-bench you will be filling. He was a fine man, though not fine enough to keep his head,” Glornir said. “He won’t be needing his spear any more, as he has taken the soul road. May it bring you battle-fame.”
Varg nodded, not knowing what to say, and then Glornir was past him, leading the Bloodsworn into the streets of Liga. Varg and Svik joined the end of the marching warriors.
They strode down a wide street, people moving to the sides for the Bloodsworn to pass.
“How’s your head?” a voice said: Torvik, the smith’s apprentice.
“It feels like your smith is inside it, and trying hard to get out with a hammer,” Varg said.
“Ha,” Torvik laughed. “Mead is a double-edged sword, no?” he said, rubbing his own temple. “It makes the world better for a while, and then worse. Much, much worse.”
They marched on, in loose order.
“Jarl Logur is good to the Bloodsworn,” Varg said, thinking about the amount of food and mead the warriors must have consumed over seven or eight days.
“Aye, but the Bloodsworn have been good to him,” Torvik said.
“How so?” Varg asked.
“The god-relic in Logur’s mead hall: the Bloodsworn gave it to him.”
“Relic?” Varg said.
“Aye, a sliver of the Vackna Horn, which summoned the gods to the Battle-Plain on the day of Guefalla. It is set in the timber beam above Logur’s high seat, and has helped to make him rich.”
“Ah,” Varg nodded, remembering seeing a bone-white sliver set in the beam, and feeling some strange sensation emanating from it. Relics had power: all knew that. Queen Helka had risen to her high seat in so short a time because she had unearthed Orna’s skeleton, the wings of the giant eagle spreading wide over Helka’s fortress at Darl.
“A generous gift that Glornir gave Logur,” Varg said.
“Not Glornir,” Torvik said. “It was Skullsplitter. Our old chief.”
“Skullsplitter?” Varg said, remembering now campfire tales among the thralls of Kolskegg’s farm, talking of a terrible, merciless warrior.
“Skullsplitter is dead, but the Bloodsworn live on,” Svik said, “and the Bloodsworn have done more for Logur than give him a shattered piece of cow-horn.”
“What do the Bloodsworn do, then?” Varg asked, wanting to find out more about this crew he was becoming a part of.
“We protect this port, from pirates and raiders,” Svik said. “We are the wolves that protect the sheep.”
“I thought wolves ate sheep,” Varg said.
Svik smiled at him. “Sometimes we do.” He shrugged. “But not sheep that are paying us.”
The street spilled out on to the docks, and instantly Varg knew there was something wrong.
People were running: dockworkers, traders, merchants. A handful of Jarl Logur’s guards with their blue shields in their fists were running the other way. Varg was one of the last of the Bloodsworn to leave the street and enter the dockside. There were screams, the slap of many feet on stone, and, above that, the sound of hooves.
Glornir led the Bloodsworn on, towards their ship the Sea-Wolf, people running and yelling, the sound of hooves growing louder. Varg strained, bouncing on his heels to see over the heads of warriors. And then a space cleared before the Bloodsworn, the stone docks empty as they approached the pier where the Sea-Wolf was moored.
A row of horses barred their way, wide and deep, warriors in iron helms with horsehair plumes and long coats of lamellar armour. Jaromir sat at their head, Ilia at his side. He held a curved bow in his fist, an arrow nocked.
Glornir walked on a few paces, then stopped and held up a hand. The Bloodsworn rippled to a halt behind him, spreading wide across the road. Shields were shrugged from backs, gripped in fists, helms buckled on to heads. Edel’s wolfhounds growled.
Jaromir touched his heels to his mount and the horse walked forwards ahead of the massed druzhina behind them, their lances glittering in the spring sun.
“I was going to visit your Jarl Logur with my petition, and my evidence,” he said, “but then I am told that your drakkar was preparing to sail.” He sniffed. “Only the guilty flee.”
Glornir said nothing, just regarded him with flat, emotionless eyes.
“Give me Sulich,” Jaromir said. “Be a man of wisdom. Save your warriors, and your ship.” He looked over his shoulder, at a pair of riders at the pier’s entrance, both waiting, holding burning torches. Varg saw shapes moving on the Sea-Wolf.