CHAPTER NINE ELVAR

CHAPTER NINE

ELVAR

E lvar lowered her sword and let her shield hang loose at her side. Steam rose from her in a cloud amid the ice-crusted cold, sweat prickling on her skin. She was in the weapons court of Snakavik, training with Grend and, for a few brief moments, she had forgotten all about gods, oaths, responsibilities and the thousand tasks she had to get through before the evening meal. Winding steps carved into the bone of Snaka's skull led down to the plateau where the weapons court stood, a steep-sided cliff dropping away from it to the fjord far below. Distant lights glimmered within the eye sockets of the serpent, the town of Snakavik existing in its perpetual gloom. Beyond the rim of the fjord cliffs the sun was a pale, diffuse glow on the horizon as it sank into the sea, making the fjord of Snakavik glow as if it was threaded with molten silver. Snowflakes fell gently about her, tingling on her skin.

"Good," Grend grunted, lowering his own axe and shield. He was wearing a sea-blue n?lbinding cap on his head and mittens on his hands and wore his coat of mail over a thick woollen tunic. Stepping forward, he leaned his shield against a low wall.

Elvar took her cap off, wool with a thick band of otter fur, and ran a hand through her sweat-drenched hair.

"It is strange, being back here," Elvar said. "So many memories, even just here, upon this small square of earth and bone." She tapped the ground of the weapons court with her heel.

"Heya," Grend agreed. "The memories of this place are good." He looked around the weapons court, a faint smile twitching his lips. "Of me training a savage war-hound." He looked up the steps that wound back up to the fortress, saw the silhouette of walls and the jagged remains of Jarl St?rr's feast hall. "The memories up there, though …" He shook his head, looked at her with bright shining eyes. "Being there, it brings back your mother's pain, how he treated her." His face twisted, part grimace, part snarl. "I do not like being up there. In that hall, those chambers."

"He is dead," Elvar said, a fierceness that she did not realise was there spilling from her lips.

"Aye," Grend nodded, "and that is good. But it does not take away the pain, does it?"

"No," Elvar said, tugging on the troll tusk that hung about her neck. She had been surprised at that, had expected to feel euphoria at her father's death. To feel the satisfaction of justice, of vengeance. But that had not happened. If anything, there was a regret. At the words unsaid between them, that could never be said now.

"No point dwelling on it," Grend murmured. "There is nothing we can do to change it now." He looked up at her, sat straighter.

"Here, I have something for you," Grend said, and reached round to his back, pulling an axe from his belt. He held it out for her.

"I fight with sword and shield," she said, with a frown.

"Aye, you do, but you can never have too many sharp edges on you. And perhaps you will find yourself in a situation where your shield has been splintered, or you only have your weapons belt to hand. You should learn to fight with sword and axe."

"I am clumsy with an axe."

"Aye, but there's something you can do about that. It's called practice. And," he smiled lovingly, as a parent over their child, "this is no ordinary axe."

Elvar looked more closely at it. The shaft was longer than usual for a hand-axe, and thinner, and the head was smaller, with an iron hammer as a counterweight to the blade. The lower half of the haft was wound with a leather grip, a thread of silver wire running through it. Elvar took it from Grend and gasped at the lightness of it. The wire seemed to tingle in her palm. She chopped at the air, felt how easy and flowing it was to use.

"It is perfectly balanced," she said, taking a slice at the bough of a tree that hung over the wall. It carved through the bough as easily as a knife would cut through skyr. "Where did you get it?"

Grend's smile broadened. "I found it among the treasure we have brought from Oskutree. It is … remarkable."

Elvar ran a thumb across it and whistled; it had shaved a neat slice of her skin.

"You don't think it is the Fate-Maker?" she whispered.

"Berser's axe? No," Grend shook his head, though he frowned for a moment. "No," he repeated. "That was a long-axe, and it is said to hold the souls of twelve of his Berserkir children." He looked suspiciously at the axe in Elvar's hands. "Can you hear them whispering to you?"

Elvar dipped an ear closer to the axe blade, but all she could hear was the raucous calling of gulls and distant waves lapping in the fjord far below. She laughed and shook her head.

"No, not the Fate-Maker, then," Grend said, "but this one could be its little brother or sister. One thing for sure, it is as sharp as sickness."

Elvar smiled. "Teach me how to use this axe, then."

Grend smiled back at her.

Elvar woke with her heart hammering, the echo of a booming voice ringing in her ears, so loud she felt it reverberating in her chest. For a moment she did not know where she was as she struggled to her feet, then memory returned in a flood.

My father's chamber. She reached for her weapons belt slung over a chair and strapped it over her brynja , which she had grown accustomed to sleeping in. She had taken it from the battle plain about Oskutree and it weighed less than her linen under-tunic. Her fingertips brushed over the axe Grend had given her, and hefted her war shield from where it leaned against a wall, slinging it over her back.

"THIEVES," a booming voice bellowed, timbers shaking, dust falling, and Elvar ran, crashing through a door into a corridor as she drew her sword. Orv the Sneak was there, standing guard over her chamber with a spear in his fist, alongside a Berserkir named Thorguna. She was standing with twin axes in her fists, growling. Grend emerged from another door, pulling his axe from his belt, Gytha behind him leaping up from a cot and slithering into her ring mail. Another door to a chamber was pulled open and Ulfrir appeared, Skuld filling the doorway behind him.

They all fell in behind Elvar as she ran down the corridor, threw her shoulder into another door and burst into the ruin of her father's feast hall, the first thing to hit Elvar's senses the sweet stink of charred flesh.

Hrung was there, on his pedestal of stone.

" THIEVES ," he bellowed again, mouth as wide as a shield.

She scanned the room, saw a charred body lying on the ground before the doors to her treasury, flesh blackened and steaming in the cold, one arm draped over a wooden chest. Soft falling snowflakes hissed into steam as they settled upon it.

My treasure , Elvar realised, looking at the chest.

She ran to the treasury, the doors smashed open, one hanging from its hinges, and peered inside.

It was empty. The other chest filled with her gold and silver from Oskutree was gone, along with the bags of silver and jewels her father had collected. There was another scorched body lying where the chest had been.

"They took your gold," Hrung said to Elvar as she ran to the fallen bodies. She kicked one over, flesh falling away in clumps from the blackened corpse.

Uspa's Seier-spell.

Other figures swarmed into the hall from different directions and ran to Elvar. Uspa with Berak, Sighvat and Sólín, more of the Battle-Grim, a score of Jarl St?rr's drengrs , now sworn to her.

"Where are Hrut and Siea? And my drengrs ?" Elvar said, referring to the two Berserkir and the warriors she had left guarding the treasury.

"There," Hrung said, looking in the direction of the shadowed mound. Sighvat went to it, pulled on an arm to reveal a man with his throat cut.

"Hrut," Berak said, stalking over to his fallen comrade. He knelt beside him. "His weapons are still in his belt." He looked at the other dead, all piled in a mound. "None of them drew a weapon." He looked up at Uspa. "How?"

"Seier," Uspa said, sniffing the air like a hound. "It is all around us, like a malignant fume."

"Yes," Hrung said, "but they did not realise you have some Seier of your own." He chuckled. "Uspa's Seier-spell on the chests cooked some of them," he continued. "I reckon it taught them to think twice before they try to steal your hard-won gold. Though they still managed to take one chest, used that man's body to push the chest into a sack. Resourceful, and persistent, even if they are thieves. And then they ran for it."

"How many?" Grend asked Hrung.

"Oh, now the silent one speaks to me," Hrung said.

"How many?" Grend snarled.

"No less than thirty, no more than forty," Hrung said with a sniff.

More Berserkir arrived, ten or twelve of them, a snarling mass of iron, fur and braids.

"Who are they?" Elvar said, leaning as close as she could to study the fallen bodies. Silver armbands and leather had melted into the flesh and bone.

"The Wave-Roamers," Orv said, kicking over a scorched shield, the sigil of a ship's sail partially visible.

"Ingvild," Elvar snarled.

Gytha tied her hair back.

"After them," Elvar said and strode through the shattered wall of the feast hall and out into the shadow-dark street.

Sighvat caught up to her as Elvar broke into a run.

"Where are we going? Shouldn't we be tracking their trail first?" he grunted.

"I know where they're going," Elvar said .

"Where?" Sighvat huffed.

"The docks and their drakkar ," Elvar grunted. "That's what I'd be doing."

Sighvat smiled and grunted admiringly.

"Gytha," Elvar called over her shoulder and the warrior caught up with her. "Close the gates."

Gytha reached for a horn banded with silver hanging at her belt and blew, Elvar hearing it answered somewhere ahead of them a few heartbeats later, fluttering through the snow-dark, but along with it she heard the clash of steel and fractured screams.

Elvar shrugged her shield from her back and, hefting it, ran on.

She turned a corner in the street and the fortress gates came into view, light and shadow flickering across them from flame-filled iron braziers. The gates were open, bodies on the ground, drengrs rushing from the ramparts. Elvar reached them and slowed, her Berserkirs flowing around her. She looked about her. The ground was littered with bodies, most of them drengrs with Snakavik's serpent-scribed shields.

They were caught unawares. No one expects enemies to attack from within the gates.

Grend crouched and lifted a shield from a body, blue, a drakkar 's sail scribed upon it. He looked at Elvar.

"Hrung was right," Elvar said. "Ingvild's Wave-Roamers."

They ran on, breath misting in great clouds, more drengrs joining them. Snow crunched as they thundered along the wooden walkway that led from the fortress across a plateau to the stairwell that led down through Snaka's serpent skull into the town of Snakavik. They passed mercenary camps on either side lit with flickering fire, Elvar noticing there were fewer than when she had arrived at Snakavik.

Dragon-hunting is not for some of them, then. She had expected some to leave, but was pleased by the numbers that had remained. She saw flashes of staring faces, heard shouted calls from either side as she ran, heard the thud of feet as more warriors joined them from various camps, caught a glimpse of Hjalmar Peacemaker with a handful of his crew running to join her, and then she saw the entrance to the skull-steps, the stairway that led down through Snaka's skull into the town of Snakavik. Torchlight revealed more bodies on the ground, more of her drengrs overwhelmed by the rush of Ingvild and her Wave-Roamers. She slowed and glanced at the corpses, ran on.

They are my warriors, mine to avenge.

Still she ran on, saw Grend on one side of her, Ulfrir on the other. His face was grim, amber eyes blazing with reflected torchlight as they descended into the tunnel. Smoke from torches and whale-oil braziers was thick in the passage, stinging her eyes, and ahead Elvar heard weapons clashing, screams echoing. They passed more dead, a few of Ingvild's among them, and then Elvar was bursting out from the tunnel into the town of Snakavik. The orange glow of torch and hearth light spread beneath her, leading down to the fjord, where black water lapped at a hundred longships. The pathway down through Snakavik to the docks was marked by torchlight, a winding, serpent-like constellation of stars. Elvar glimpsed a huddle of figures flitting through the glow and disappearing around a bend in the street, saw a pale face look back at her, black braids flying, her lower jaw a mass of swirling tattoos.

Elvar snarled and sprinted on, leaping down steps three at a time, slipping on timber walkways, her breath heaving in her chest. She skidded and slammed into a wall, Ulfrir reaching out to steady her, and then the ground was levelling, the stink of fish and salt growing as they approached the docks, turned a corner and saw Ingvild's crew hurtling down a pier, a drakkar at the end of it heaving with people readying the ship to sail, the oar mast being raised and slotted into the mast hole, sail still furled, oars heaved from the central racks.

Elvar saw a fair-haired woman with sword and shield turn and look back. She said something to the woman next to her, the dark-haired, tattooed woman Elvar had glimpsed earlier.

Ingvild, the traitorous bitch, and her Seier-witch.

A handful of words was exchanged and the Seier-witch was turning, one arm gesturing in the air, shouting words that Elvar did not understand.

Movement on the dock caught Elvar's eye, something slithering across the timber, and she slowed, stumbled to a halt, her crew rippling to a standstill around her. A serpent, black-skinned and long as a man. It moved across the dock, raised its head and looked at Elvar, hissed at her, venom dripping from its fangs. More movement, the shadows churning, and more serpents slithered onto the dock, ten, twenty, more and more of them, filling the space between Elvar and Ingvild's crew until the whole of the dock was seething.

Ulfrir stepped forwards.

"Pathetic," he muttered. " Farnar, aumkunarvereir vinir ," he snarled with a dismissive gesture and the serpents were suddenly evaporating, hissing into so much mist and smoke.

Elvar blinked.

"What?" she muttered.

"They were a Seier-spell," Uspa said beside her. "A glamour, an illusion."

With a shriek Skuld's wings snapped open and she was leaping into the air, wings beating as she drew the sword at her waist, and she swept higher as Ingvild's Seier-witch raised her hands. Runes sparked to life as she traced them in the air with a black-nailed finger. Beside Elvar, Uspa stepped forwards, snarling and spitting out her own Seier-words.

" Binddu varir hennar ," Uspa cried out and at the feet of Ingvild's Seier-witch tendrils of mist rose up from between the timber planks, coiling about her like vine on a tree and wrapping around her mouth, solidifying and pulling tight. The Seier-witch mumbled, staggered backwards, clawing at her mouth, but the mist just parted for her fingers and reformed. A shriek from above and Skuld came hurtling down, a glitter of ice as her sword swung and the Seier-witch fell backwards, crashed to the docks, blood erupting.

Elvar strode forwards, Grend and her crew moving with her.

Ingvild was shouting orders at her crew, a dozen on the ship, more on the docks. Two warriors carrying a hemp sack between them were clambering into the drakkar . Ingvild turned and saw the Seier-serpents evaporate and her Seier-witch fall. She stood there a moment, looked at Elvar and her warriors.

"Shield wall," Ingvild bellowed.

The warriors on the dock turned, shields clattering and slamming together, forming up into three lines. Iron glinted as axes and spears were hefted.

"Kill them," Elvar snarled, breaking into a jog and around her the Berserkir roared, thundering forwards. They overtook her and as they ran Elvar saw them change, muscles swelling on backs and shoulders, hunching, eyes blazing. They growled and frothed, axes rising, and swept forwards like a wave of muscle, claw and iron. She saw Ingvild's shield wall brace before impact, then there was a crash that shook the timber beneath Elvar's feet, making her stumble. As she righted herself, she saw that the shield wall was gone, bodies spinning through the air, bodies on the ground, Berserkir hacking about them with a savage fury. Here and there pockets of combat raged, some of Ingvild's shield wall regrouping, more warriors leaping from the drakkar back onto the dock, joining the battle. Elvar saw three of them skewer a Berserkir with their spears, but he only snarled and hacked at the spear shafts with his axe, splintering two of them.

Elvar hefted her sword and shield and ran into the carnage, bodies strewn about her, blood slick on the timber boards. She saw a knot of Ingvild's Wave-Roamers and ran at them, skidded and leaned back to avoid a stabbing spear that hissed over her shoulder, stumbled and fell crashing into the spear-holder. Her momentum knocked his legs out from beneath him and they fell in a tangle, rolled, spear and shields snaring, Elvar trying to stab with her sword but getting no power behind it. They snarled and spat, a wash of fetid breath as the man tried to bite her and Elvar smashed her head into his nose, came to a halt and she scrambled free, rose to one knee and saw Grend and Berak descend upon the spearman. Axes chopped and blood sprayed, a short scream ended with another hack of Grend's axe.

Elvar stood, caught a blur of movement to her right and turned, sword swinging, a warrior leaping at her, a woman chopping with a bearded axe. Grend bellowed and leaped, slammed his shoulder into her and they fell together and rolled. Elvar followed them, her sword stabbing down and the woman screamed, arched her back. Elvar ripped her blade free and raised it for another strike, but the woman was flopping, Grend climbing to his feet. Blood sheeted his face from a cut across his forehead.

"You're hurt," Elvar said and he touched the wound.

"A scratch," he grunted.

"Good scrap, this," Sighvat grinned as he joined them, his axe red and dripping, shield as big as a table.

The three of them strode on together, combat raging around them, Elvar stabbing with her sword, punching with her shield, Grend hacking with his gods-touched axe, cleaving through mail, flesh, bone, Sighvat sending people crashing to the ground with blows that would fell trees. Elvar glimpsed Ulfrir, still in his human form, though he was growling and slashing about him with long-taloned hands. A handful of warriors were gathered around him, amber-eyed men and women snarling, protecting his flanks and carving into any who dared attack him. Sólín Spittle fought alongside a group of the Battle-Grim, her Oskutree spear-head glowing silver as it carved through a warrior. Hjalmar Peacemaker was bellowing in rage through his spittle-flecked beard, his Fell-Hearted warriors bunched behind him. Some were sheathing their weapons to drop to their knees and strip the dead.

And then Elvar saw Ingvild. She was stood over the body of one of Elvar's drengrs , a shield in one fist, bearded axe in the other. Fair-haired with a fine nasal helm, a coat of blood-spattered mail and silver rings upon her arm.

"She's mine ," Elvar snarled at Grend and Sighvat, stepping forwards, shield held in front, sword tip balanced on the top rim. Ingvild grinned at her and took a step to her right, away from Elvar's sword arm. Then Ingvild was darting in fast and chopping high, Elvar moving to block, realising it was a feint as Ingvild's wrist twisted and the blow slipped low, around her shield and scoring a line across Elvar's ribs, the rings on her brynja holding. Elvar stepped back, annoyed with herself, felt her ribs throbbing from the blow, growled and moved in, sword hidden behind her shield, stabbing at Ingvild's axe-arm. The woman stepped back, knocked Elvar's sword away with her shield, began to smile, but then Elvar's shield rim was punched into her jaw and she stumbled back, spitting blood. Elvar followed fast, movement from her left and she twisted, saw a spear-wielding warrior lunging at her. Sighvat stepped in and hammered the man to the ground.

"You weren't invited," he rumbled as he swung his axe down.

Elvar stepped after Ingvild, who was setting her feet and raising her shield, blood on her lips. Elvar swung high and low, both blows blocked by Ingvild's shield, wood splintering, then Ingvild was stepping close, hooking the beard of her axe over Elvar's shield and stepping away, pulling and twisting. A sharp pain in Elvar's wrist and she hissed, her grip loosening, and her shield was ripped from her grip.

Elvar stepped back, glimpsed a crowd around them, formed in a half-circle, Skuld, Ulfrir, many of the Battle-Grim, her Berserkir all snarling and prowling. The battle was done. But if she backed away now, didn't prove herself the better warrior ? how would they ever believe her fit to lead them against a dragon-god. Berak stepped forwards.

"No," Elvar barked at him. "She's mine."

"That will be your last mistake," Ingvild said through bloodied lips.

Elvar's left hand reached for the axe Grend had given her. It slipped from her belt into her fist and she set her feet, spun her sword in her fist.

"Come then, thief," she growled at Ingvild.

Ingvild grinned and shuffled forwards, shield in front of her, axe raised high.

Elvar turned, side on, left side facing Ingvild, her small axe raised to head height, sword held low. As Ingvild stepped closer Elvar pivoted on her heel, chopped with her sword and Ingvild blocked it, struck with her axe, but Elvar's own axe snaked out and met Ingvild's blade. A twist of Elvar's wrist and her axe head hooked around Ingvild's weapon, locking them together, a rotation of Elvar's arm and wrist and she was dragging Ingvild's axe head low, pulling her enemy off balance as she twisted her arm, steering Ingvild's axe beneath the lower rim of her shield and at the same time swinging her sword high in a looping chop, coming down between Ingvild's neck and shoulder. Shattered links of mail and blood sprayed as Elvar ripped her sword free, Ingvild falling to her knees. The sword swung again, clanging off Ingvild's helm, denting it and sending her crashing onto her back. She tried to roll away but Elvar's blows were too fast now, the small axe chopping down into Ingvild's face, a scream, the axe rising and falling, blood and teeth spraying, rose and fell again, and again, rage flooding Elvar.

Eventually she paused, her chest heaving, breath loud in her ears and she blinked sweat out of her eyes, looked around.

All were staring at her.

"She stole my treasure," Elvar said, spitting blood onto the floor.

"Remind me never to take anything from you without asking first," Sighvat boomed.