Snorri started forwards.
“No!” I grabbed hold of his arm and heaved back with whatever strength I had left. The curse flared between us, the resulting blast shredding his sleeve and throwing me back across the table, afterimages of ink and sunlight overwriting my vision. The scent of burned air filled my nostrils, a sharp astringency that took me back to that street in Vermillion, running as if all Satan’s devils were at my heels, the cobbles cracking open behind me.
“What in Hel?” Snorri spun in my direction.
“I know—” Only a whisper came. I coughed and spoke again. “I know bastards.”
Ein bent and picked up the discarded shield. Tuttugu took another two from a display on the wall.
“These are your last moments, Broke-Oar!” Snorri shouted, and, bearing the shields high and low, Tuttugu and Ein stepped towards the doorway.
Crossbow bolts hammered into the shields in the instant Snorri’s guardians crossed the archers’ line of sight. Snorri unleashed a wordless roar and, pushing between his companions, launched himself into the next room.
I followed, still a touch dazed. If I’d had my wits about me I would have sat down with Arne and played dead.
Sven Broke-Oar stood at the far side of a chamber smaller than the one we’d come from, dwarfing the three crossbow-men beside him. I won’t say he made Snorri look small, but he sure as hell stopped him looking biggest. The man’s mother must have slept with trolls. Handsome trolls, though. With his great red-gold beard plaited across his chest and his hair flowing free, the Broke-Oar looked every inch a Viking king, down to the gold chasing at the edges of the scarred iron breastplate he had on. He held a fine axe in one hand, the iron buckler on his other about the size of a dinner plate, smooth and thick.
Ein veered towards the two men on the left; Tuttugu charged the one to the right. Sven Broke-Oar advanced to meet Snorri.
There’s not much you can do about an axe swinging your way with a man’s strength behind it. Killing the axe’s owner before he completes his blow is your best option. With a sword you can impale your foe. But if like your foe you’re armed with an axe, then “swing faster and hope” seems to be the best advice on offer. And of course to swing at your man you need to be a certain distance off—exactly the same distance he needs you to be at in order to swing at you.
Snorri had a different solution. He reached out before him, axe extended, running faster than is possible for any man building for a swing. The turn of speed spoiled the Broke-Oar’s timing, his cutting edge arriving a split second too late, the haft of his axe just below the blade hammered into Snorri’s raised shoulder, while Snorri’s axe smashed into the Broke-Oar’s neck, not with the cutting edge but bracketing the man’s throat with the horns of the blade.
That should have been an end to it. A narrow piece of metal driven against a throat by a powerful man. Somehow, though, the Broke-Oar slammed his buckler into the side of Snorri’s head and fell back, clasping his neck. Both men should have been down, but instead they reeled, unsteady on their feet, then came together like bears, grappling.
Ein had killed one of his two opponents and now wrestled the second, both men clutching knives, trying to drive them into each other’s faces whilst stopping the other man doing the same. Tuttugu had killed his foe, but the Red Viking had loosed his dagger before Tuttugu split his head. I couldn’t see how bad the wound was, but the speed with which the blood spilled over the fat man’s hands where he clutched his belly said it couldn’t be good.
The two giants stood, fingers interlocked, straining one against the other. Purple in the face and spraying crimson with each explosive exhalation, the Broke-Oar forced Snorri down, inch by inch. Muscle heaped, veins bulged fit to burst, both men groaned and laboured for breath. It seemed bones must give—that in a sudden snap the immense forces would shatter limbs—but all that happened was that by degrees, pumping blood past the bindings on shoulder and side, Snorri gave, until with a swift release he was on his knees, the Broke-Oar still pressing down upon him.
Tuttugu took one dripping hand from his belly and bent with agonizing slowness to retrieve his axe. The Broke-Oar, without even seeming to have looked, kicked behind him and broke the Undoreth’s knee, sending Tuttugu sprawling with a scream of pain. Snorri tried to surge up and got a leg beneath him, but with a roar the Broke-Oar drove him back down.
Ein and the Hardanger man were still rolling on the floor, both cut now. I looked at my sword, already scarlet from tip to pommel. That’s Snorri there. I had to say it to myself. Companion through innumerable miles, through weeks of hardship, dangers . . . The Broke-Oar pressed him lower, both men howling animal threats. A sudden twist and Sven Broke-Oar had Snorri’s throat in his huge right paw, their other hands still locked, Snorri’s unburdened hand trying to tear the fingers from his neck.
The Broke-Oar was exposed. Head bowed. “Christ, Jalan, just do it!” I had to shout the words at myself. And, reluctant at first, picking up speed, I ran towards them, sword overhead. I’d not wanted to hit the man in the tower, not even with an arrow from a hundred yards off. Sven Broke-Oar I wanted to die, right then, right there, and if it had to be me to do it . . .
I brought both arms down, scything my blade through the air, and somehow in that instant the Broke-Oar tore his off hand from Snorri’s grasp and interposed his buckler. The shock of it rang through my sword as if I’d hit stone, shaking it from my grip. One swift lunge, pushing Snorri over backwards with the hand still locked to his throat, and the giant punched me just below the heart, a combined impact of broad knuckles and the edge of his buckler. The breath left me in a wordless whoosh, ribs snapped, and I fell as if hamstrung.
From the floor I saw the Broke-Oar flick off the buckler and lock his second hand around Snorri’s throat. I managed to draw the breath that Snorri couldn’t. The air wheezed into me like acid poured into my lungs, ribs grating around their fractures.
Sven Broke-Oar started to shake Snorri, slowly at first, then more fiercely as the younger man’s face darkened with the strangulation. “You should have stayed gone, Snagason. The North has nothing else like me. It takes more than a boy to bring me down.”
I could see the life leaving Snorri, arms falling away limp, and still all I could manage was the next breath. Ein had fallen away from his enemy, both of them lying spent. Tuttugu lay in a spreading pool of his own blood, watching but beyond helping.
“Time to die, Snorri.” And the muscles bunched in the Broke-Oar’s forearms, tightening a grip that could snap an oar.
Somewhere, unseen, the sun set.
Snorri lifted his arms. His hands closed on Sven Broke-Oar’s wrists, and where they touched the Hardanger man’s flesh it turned black. A snarl twisted the Broke-Oar’s lips as Snorri raised his head and pulled the fingers from his neck. A sudden, vicious downward yank and both the Broke-Oar’s forearms snapped, the bone jutting from crimson gore. A backhanded blow and he fell, sprawling beside Tuttugu.
“You?” Snorri’s voice blending with Aslaug’s as he stood. “It’s me the North should walk in fear of.” He held the discarded buckler now, nothing but darkness in his eyes.
“Better.” From his place on the ground Sven Broke-Oar managed a laugh. “Better. You might even stand a chance. Make a ruin of them, Snorri, send them howling back to Hel!”
Snorri knelt beside Sven Broke-Oar, leaning in.
“They put a fear in me, Snorri, gods damn them. Gods damn them all.”
“Where’s Freja?” Snorri took Broke-Oar around the neck, pounding his head against the floor. “My son? Where is he?” Each question roared into the man’s face.
“You know!” Broke-Oar spat out a bloody answer.
“You’ll tell me!” Snorri set his thumbs against the Broke-Oar’s eyes.
I fainted at that point, just as Snorri started to press and Broke-Oar let out a scream that was half laughter.
Those dark and insensible moments were the only period of comfort I had in that black fort. Washed away too soon by the passage of what could only have been seconds.
“Time to die, Broke-Oar.” Snorri bent low over the fallen giant, hands crimson.
A wet red splutter, then, “Burn the dead—”
Sven Broke-Oar had time for no more. Snorri crushed his skull with a sharp blow of the heavy buckler.
“Snorri.” I couldn’t manage above a whisper, but he looked up, the darkness fading from his eyes, leaving them clear and ice-blue.
“Jal!” Despite his wounds he was at my side in a moment, seizing the hood of my winter coat, deaf to my protests. For one moment I thought he was going to help me, but instead he dragged me across to lie beside Ein.
The Red Viking next to Ein looked dead enough, but Snorri took the knife from the man’s hand and cut his throat with it just to be sure. “Alive?” He turned to Ein and slapped him. Ein groaned and opened his eyes. “Good. What can you do for him, Jal?”
“Me?” I lifted an arm. I don’t know why—perhaps to ward off the suggestion—and found that I’d been stabbed, high in the bicep. “Hell!” Rolling over was an agony, but it let me confirm another flash of memory from the red haze of my battle—I’d been cut on the thigh too. “I’m worse than Ein is.” With the injuries I’d taken without knowing or remembering them, it was almost true. But Ein had a stab wound in his chest. One that bubbled and sucked with each breath out and in. The killing kind.
“He’s worse, Jal. And you can’t heal yourself. We know that.”
“I can’t heal anyone without half-dying myself. It’d kill me.” Though dying would at least stop each breath being a torture. My side had been filled with broken glass, I was sure of it.
“The magic is stronger here, Jal; you must feel it trying to break out? I can almost see it glowing in you.” An edge of pleading in his voice. Not for himself, never that, but for the last of his countrymen.
“Jesus! You people will be the death of me.” And I slapped my palm to Ein’s stab wound—harder than necessary.
In an instant my hand flared, too bright to look at, and every ache I had became an agony, my ribs something beyond comprehension. I snatched my hand back almost immediately, panting and cursing, blood and drool dripping from my mouth.
“Good. Now Tuttugu!” And I felt myself dragged. I watched through one eye as Ein struggled to sit up, poking at the unbroken but bloodstained skin where the knife had slid beneath his ribs.
Snorri set me beside Tuttugu and we met each other’s gaze, both of us too weak for talking. The Viking, who had been pale to start with, now lay as white as frost. Snorri pulled Tuttugu around, moving him without effort despite his girth. He tugged Tuttugu’s hand clear of the stomach wound and drew in an involuntary breath.
“It’s bad. You’ve got to heal this, Jal. The rest can wait, but this will sour. The guts are cut inside.”
“I can’t do it.” I’d more easily stab a knife through my hand or put a hot coal in my mouth. “You don’t understand . . .”
“He’ll die! I know Arne was too far gone, but this, this is a slow death—you can stop it.” Snorri kept talking. It washed over me. Tuttugu said nothing, only watched me as I watched him, both of us lying on the cold stone floor, too weak to move. I remembered him on the mountainside overlooking Trond, telling me he would run from every battle if only his legs were longer. A kindred soul, almost as deep in his fears as me, but he’d gone to war in the Black Fort even so.
“Shut up,” I told Snorri. And he did.
Ein came to join him, moving with an old man’s care.
“I can’t do it. I really can’t.” I pointed my gaze towards my free hand. The other still clutched my sword for some reason; it was probably glued on by all the gore. “I can’t do it. But no man should go to Valhalla with brothel rash.” Again, pointing with my gaze.
Finally Ein took the hint. I screwed both eyes shut, gritted my teeth, clenched what could be clenched, and he grabbed my forearm, setting my hand against the rip in Tuttugu’s belly.
It made healing Ein seem like a simple thing.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I woke before the heat of a fire. My side ached like a bastard, but the heat felt wonderful and if I didn’t move a single muscle it was almost comfortable.
Gradually other hurts made themselves known. A throbbing pain in my thigh, a stabbing pain in my arm, a generalized wretchedness from all the muscles I could name and many I couldn’t.
I opened an eye. “Where’s Snorri?”
They’d laid me out on one of the long tables at the end closest to the hearth. Ein and Tuttugu sat before the fire, Tuttugu binding a splint about his knee, Ein sharpening his axe. Both had cleaned and stitched their wounds, or had the other do it.
“Burning the dead.” Tuttugu pointed towards the far door. “He’s building a pyre on the wall.”
I tried to sit up and lay back cursing. “There’s not enough wood, surely? Why not leave them to freeze?”
“He found the wood store, and he’s been knocking doors off hinges, ripping down shutters.”
“But why?” I asked, not sure I wanted an answer.
“Because of what will be coming from the Bitter Ice,” Ein said. “He doesn’t want the bodies raised against us.” He didn’t say that his last three brothers lay amongst them, but something in his face told it anyway.
“If they’re frozen they won’t be able to . . .” I tried to sit again. Sitting is an important precursor to running away.
“Might not freeze in time,” Tuttugu said.
“And Snorri doesn’t want anything left to be defiled after . . .” Ein set his whetstone down and admired his edge in the firelight.
Between them the two men I’d saved had managed to make my blood run cold. That “in time” and that “after” were not encouraging. A corpse would freeze solid overnight.
“We’re expecting . . . trouble . . . before morning?” I tried to make it not sound like whining, and failed.
“No ‘we’ about it. It’s what Snorri says. He says they’re coming.” Tuttugu tightened the bindings about his knee and whimpered in pain.
“How does he know?” I made a third attempt to sit, galvanized by fear, and succeeded, ribs grating.
“Snorri says the dark told him.” Ein set his axe down and looked my way. “And if he doesn’t end this in the dark, then you’ll have to do it in the light.”
“This—” I eased down from the table and the pain cut me off. “This is madness. He finds his wife and child, and then we go!” I left off the “finds them dead or alive” part. “Broke-Oar is dead—it’s done.”
Without waiting to be contradicted, I hobbled off towards the far door. The blood smears, drying to black and deepest scarlet now, showed the way. Where Snorri found the energy to drag approaching thirty corpses out along that corridor and onto the fort wall I didn’t know, but I did know that he would have neither the fuel, stamina, nor time to add the frozen dead of Olaaf Rikeson’s army to his pyre.
The stairs up to the outer door were slippery with blood, already freezing where it had dripped from one step to the next. Opening the door, I found the night lit with a vast blaze, the wind trailing orange flame out over the battlements. Even with all that heat not twenty yards off, the cold bit me immediately, the alien cold of a landscape that held in it nothing for men or for any other living thing.
Snorri stood silhouetted against the inferno. I could see corpses and timbers, some black against the hot glow, others melting into it. Even the wind’s strength couldn’t keep the scent of roasting flesh from my nostrils. The walkway ran with hot fats, burning even as they spilled down the inner wall.
“It’s done, then?” I had to raise my voice above the crackle of the fire and the wind’s discontent.
“They’re coming,
Jal. The dead men from the Bitter Ice, the necromancers who herd them, Edris and the rest of the Broke-Oar’s following.” He paused. “The unborn.”
“What the hell are you doing out here, then?” I shouted. “Search for your wife and let’s be gone.” I ignored the fact that I could barely walk the length of the corridor and that if his child were here we couldn’t march across the Uplands with him. Such truths were too uncomfortable. Besides, the woman and boy were probably dead, and I would rather die trying to cross the ice than facing necromancers and their horrors.
Snorri turned away from the fire, eyes red with smoke. “Let’s go in. I’ve spoken the words. The flames will carry them to Valhalla.”
“Well, not Broke-Oar and his bastards,” I said.
“Even them.” Snorri glanced back at the blaze, a half-smile twisting his split lip. “They died in battle, Jal. That’s all it takes. When we arm against the jotün and the jotnär at Ragnarok, all men with fire in their blood will stand together.”
We walked in side by side, Snorri matching my snail’s pace as I hobbled down the stairs, mis-stepping once and uttering every foul word I knew until I reached the bottom. “We can’t stay here, Snorri.”
“It’s a fortress. Where better to stay when your enemies march?”
He had me there.
“How long was I out? How much time is left?”
“It’s two hours until dawn. They’ll be here before that.”
“What will we do?” Sven Broke-Oar had been bad enough. I had no desire to wait to see whatever it was that had terrified a monster like him.
“Barricade ourselves in the gatehouse. Wait.”
As much as I liked the idea of defence, it didn’t sound like Snorri. His very name meant “attack.” To hold back sounded like an admission of defeat. But the man was all done in. I could see that. I could no more heal his wounds than I could my own. Just walking beside him set the air crackling with uncomfortable energies. Even with a yard between us, my skin crawled as if somewhere in the marrow of my bones, that crack, the one the Silent Sister’s magic had fractured into the world—between worlds—as if that crack were seeking to break out. It wanted to run through me and join its dark twin as it broke from Snorri, to join together and race towards the horizon, splitting and splitting again until the world lay shattered.