Varg stood in the stern of the Sea-Wolf, behind Torvik and a handful of other warriors. More stood behind Varg, all of them jostling and laughing and singing as figures leaped over the starboard top-rail and ran the oardance, leaping from oar to oar as the Sea-Wolf was rowed into a sharp-sloped fjord. Surviving a summer storm seemed to be something worth celebrating among the Bloodsworn. Varg agreed, a faint echo of the fear still lingering in the pit of his belly that he had felt as the waves had risen and the lightning-scarred skies had unleashed a torrent so heavy he could not see his hand in front of his nose. He had been certain his death was at hand, fragmented memories seared into his thought-cage like the incandescent bursts of lightning that had crackled through the heavens above him, the sound of Einar bellowing orders and the dimly glimpsed figure of Glornir strapping himself to the top-rail so that he could keep his grip on the tiller without being hurled overboard. The skies were clear, now, as if the storm had never been, the air fresh, and the sun was sinking into the rim of the world, turning the now calm ocean and fjord to molten bronze.
Torvik climbed on to the top-rail, looked back at Varg and the others, then leaped on to the first oar, teetered for a moment, then found his balance and leaped to the next. Only two days had passed since they left Liga, but to Varg it had felt like a lifetime.
Like a new life, as if I have been reborn.
His hands were raw and blistered from rowing and handling what felt like leagues of sea-soaked rigging, his face red and burned by the sun, his clothing sodden from the sudden storm that had swept out of the north, and yet he felt… happy. It was a strange sensation, when all he had known his whole life was toil and misery, the only light in his life during the long dark of servitude being Fr?ya. He tensed just at the memory of her name, a flutter of happiness and guilt in his belly, a reminder of why he was here, of the oath he had sworn. To find her body and avenge her murder. To rip and tear his sister’s killers. He had sworn it as he had stood blood-drenched over Kolskegg’s still-warm corpse and his oath hovered now in his mind and blood like a dark-winged raven, croaking that time was passing.
I have not forgotten you. I will never forget you. And my oath stands, I will make it happen. But if I feel some moments of cheer as I walk that path, or find some friends, is that so bad a thing? Should it feel so… wrong?
“Go on, No-Sense,” a voice said behind him, Svik pushing him, and Varg blinked, shook his head and saw that there was no one between him and the top-rail. He jumped up on to the rail and stood there a moment. Around half the crew were rowing the Sea-Wolf, thirty oars rising and falling, the other half taking part in this oardance. Ahead of him Torvik leaped from oar to oar, grinning and whooping. Varg sucked in a deep breath and leaped on to the first oar, timed it so that it was dipping as he landed, his feet spread, knees bending as the oar began to rise. He felt the air churn around him, swirled his arms and then he was stable, standing on the oar, a grin splitting his face.
“Get on with you,” Svik yelled, the warrior standing on the top-rail now, waiting his turn at the first oar. Varg grinned and leaped, landing on the next oar with his left foot, dipping and pushing off, leaping to the next one, moving on as if the oars were stepping stones across a river that were too small to take both of his feet.
There was a cry and a splash ahead of him, and Varg glanced to see Torvik disappear into the fjord’s ice-blue embrace, an explosion of sun-flecked foam as he resurfaced. Varg ran on, along the entire starboard length of the ship until he was leaping on to the rail before the prow. A smile and dip of her head from Vol the Seier-witch from her usual place in the prow, one of Edel’s wolfhounds there, panting and watching Varg, nudging him for a neck-scratch. He quickly obliged and then he was leaping back on to the portside rail, one foot slipping and then he was leaping again, airborne, weightless, landing with a thump on the first oar. There was a flash of a black beard and teeth as J?kul the smith grinned over his oar at Varg.
Varg grinned back as he bent his legs and leaped onwards. There were many things that he was learning in his short time with the Bloodsworn, shield and spear under the merciless tutelage of R?kia, ship craft from seemingly everyone, but some skills came naturally to Varg and did not need teaching. Endurance, determination, and balance. He was light on his feet. On Kolskegg’s farm during the Winternight celebration that followed the harvest Varg had taken part in the tree-run, where those willing had to run across a river full of cut timber trunks that spun and moved under your feet. It was not unknown for men and women to be crushed or drowned during the trial, but Varg had won it every year since his first attempt, when he had only eleven winters on his shoulders. And so, he was enjoying this trial and faring better than many of the other Bloodsworn, as attested by the shrieks and splashes occurring around him.