CHAPTER ELEVEN BIÓRR

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BIóRR

B iórr looked up at Myrk where she sat astride him, her breeches bunched around her ankles, her coat of mail glistening with dew, the flesh of her thighs pale as milk. She blew out a cloud of misted breath and sighed. Her eyes were closed and, for a moment, the lines in her face were softer, carefree, even the puckered scars around her ruined eye did not look so deep. She sucked in a long breath and made a contented sound, then opened her eyes and smiled at him.

"Ahh, I needed that," she breathed. "You have always been a good hump," she said, a grin stretching across her lips and, even though she smiled, the hardness returned to her features. She wriggled off his hips and rolled onto the ground, pulling up her breeches.

"Well, I'm glad to have been of service," Biórr said, reaching to drag his own breeches back up and tie them off as the cold began to bite at his goose-prickling flesh.

"Oh, you have, I would recommend you to my friends, if I had any left alive," she said.

"Are we not friends?" Biórr asked her.

Myrk leaned over on one elbow and looked at him, her bold smile fading, and she stroked one finger down his cheek to his stubbled jaw.

"We are," she whispered, "and more", then bent and kissed him on the lips. It was different from her normal kiss, soft where it was usually hard, tender where it was usually passion and fire. Then she was standing and buckling on her weapons belt over her coat of mail, her brother Drekr's two seaxes that she had retrieved from Orka hanging from it, one across the front of her hips, one across her buttocks. She stood over Biórr and offered him a hand.

He took it and she heaved him upright. He adjusted his coat of mail and cinched his weapons belt tight, bent to retrieve his cloak and threw it across his shoulders, tying it. They were standing among tall reeds beside the bank of a river, mist swirling off the water and around their ankles. The Bonebacks reared to the north, the rising sun gleaming pink and gold on the snow-capped peaks, forests of pine draping the mountain slopes like a shadowed cloak of black feathers. In a valley between the river and mountains Rotta's warband was stirring. Smoke was rising as fires were kindled, pots of water bubbling, porridge being stirred. Behind Biórr there was a soft splash and he looked over his shoulder, saw two spertus crawl from the water onto the riverbank and disappear among the mist and thick reeds. He shuddered, remembering the same species had stabbed Storolf with its poisonous sting, and then vomited a black pestilence into Rotta's face.

"Come on," he said to Myrk and made his way through the foliage along the riverbank, being careful to move away from where the reeds rustled as the spertus scuttled through them. He did not want to get stung by mistakenly treading on one of the nasty little creatures.

The snow was only a thin crust underfoot now, as they had travelled further south and turned west to follow the curl of the Bonebacks towards Darl, though the ground beneath the snow was hard and cold as iron. As they approached the rear of the column a handful of infant trolls ran laughing and squealing from the camp and leaped into the river, crashing like boulders, spumes of water exploding about them. Biórr smiled at the sight of it, then he saw Red Fain leaning on a long-axe.

"I'll see you after," Biórr said to Myrk and she nodded distractedly, no doubt thinking on the tasks at hand, before she marched off towards the head of the column.

"You need to be careful, sneaking off beyond the guard-line," Fain said, frowning up at the mist-shrouded trees.

"I'm always careful," Biórr said.

"I'm sure Brák's lads thought the same, right up to the moment when they got their throats slit or faces stabbed by that poisonous little monster. And those skraeling that were our rearguard probably thought the same, until they were butchered as they walked." That was fresh in Biórr's mind because he had found them. It had been the end of yesterday's march, when the daily ritual of the trailing prisoners being given to the frost-spiders and night-hags was supposed to happen. Myrk had ridden down the column with a handful of her dragon-born kin, ready to herd the stragglers towards the treeline. But there had been no sign of any stragglers, or the skraeling rearguard. Biórr had mounted a horse and ridden back along their route, and found the bodies of a half-dozen skraeling, some slain with weapons, others bearing the black marks of the spertus' poison, and the stragglers were nowhere to be seen. Myrk had been enraged.

"I was with Myrk, she's fiercer than any vaesen, and she has sharp ears," Biórr said.

"I'm sure she has, when she's not … distracted." Fain reached out a big hand and squeezed Biórr's shoulder. "I just don't want to lose you the way I lost Storolf," he growled, taking his eyes from the trees to hold Biórr's gaze.

Biórr nodded and patted Fain's hand on his shoulder.

"I'll be careful, old man." He rubbed his hands together in the cold and blew misted breath into them. "Anything to report?" he asked.

"A quiet night, apart from Harek's snoring," Fain said, his words slurring as he spoke through the swelling of his cheek. The cuts were healing where Orka had ripped at his face with her wolf-teeth, now mostly scabs and red-swollen skin. "I had to kick him to make him stop." He nodded his white-bearded jaw at the young lad, who was now busy stirring porridge in a bubbling pot.

"He's a good lad," Biórr said. "Took some stones to stand there and let us know Orka and her Bloodsworn were in the camp."

"Aye, it did," Fain grunted, shifting his weight on the long-axe he was leaning upon, "doesn't change the fact he snores like a sow."

Biórr grinned. "Orka?" he asked, his smile fading.

"She's not moved all night, woke up in the position she went to sleep in," Fain said with a grunt.

"You might be taking this guarding prisoners' job too seriously," Biórr smiled.

"She killed my son, nearly did for me. I'm not going to wake up to find she's slaughtered half our troops and walked out of here," Fain said.

"No chance of that," Biórr muttered as he looked around the camp, saw guards spread around them, skraeling in small clumps along the riverbank, dragon-worshippers in a loose line between the camp and the treeline, saw bull trolls standing still as boulders, the whirr of tennúr-wings above them and the odd movement of frost-spiders among the boughs of trees. "Nothing's getting in or out of this camp." He shifted his gaze to look over the small knots of prisoners huddled around fires, saw Orka sitting a little apart from Dagrun, Jarl Orlyg's son. She sat with her legs pulled up, flecks of amber in her eyes as she stared at the flames in the fire pit before her, her bound hands resting upon her knees.

Horns blew from the head of the column along the vale, signalling the time to break camp was close.

"Best get some porridge into you and some heat into your bones," Fain said and led Biórr towards Harek and the pot he was stirring.

Biórr gave a small bow to Rotta as he strode back along the column and fell in beside him. They had just begun marching again after stopping for a brief noonday meal. Rotta looked at the wagons with the Tainted children sat upon them, and to the rows of prisoners taken from Svelgarth. There were fewer of them now. More than a hundred had set out from Svelgarth, but there were no more than fifty of them left now. The frost-spiders and night-hags were eating well most nights.

"The children who fled, they are no longer bound," Rotta remarked.

"No, lord," Biórr said. "I do not think they will try to flee again, so I removed their bonds."

"And how have you managed that?" Rotta asked him.

"A little kindness," Biórr shrugged, looking at Bjarn, who sat beside Harek on a wagon. "The odd game of tafl, and three meals a day." After Orka's raid during the sack of Svelgarth many of the children had fled. Biórr had found Bjarn unconscious and half-buried beneath the wheel of a wagon that had been smashed to kindling by Rotta as he had changed into his rat form, thrashing in pain from the poison of the spertus.

"I have always tried to make my sister understand that there are other ways to achieve your goals besides stabbing, beating or eating people," Rotta said. "Unsuccessfully, so far, I must say. But you are doing well."

Biórr felt a flush of pride and walked a little taller.

Something drew Biórr's attention towards the treeline, his rat-sense tingling, which usually meant danger. He slowed his pace and stared, saw that Rotta was looking, too. Snow had begun to fall gently, following them out of the north.

Biórr narrowed his eyes and focused his sight through the soft-falling snow, strained his hearing, could not see or hear anything, no sign of movement, but he felt it. A prickling of his hairs, as if he were being watched.

Rotta called to a tennúr and sent them to investigate. A blur of wings and they were speeding over to the trees, flitting among the boughs.

"What is it?" Biórr murmured.

"I'm not sure," Rotta answered with a frown. "But something is out there, watching us."

The tennúr broke from the canopy, in a puff of snow and flew back towards them.

"Nothing there," it squeaked.

Rotta scowled at the treeline, but Biórr knew the tennúr was right, his rat-sense had calmed.

"Her crew?" Biórr asked, nodding to Orka.

"Most likely," Rotta said, tearing his eyes from the treeline to look at Orka. "And how is the wolf spawn?" he said, glaring towards Orka where she walked slightly apart from the other prisoners. She wore a woollen tunic and an under-tunic, had refused the cloak Biórr had offered her when he had taken her coat of mail from her.

"She is stone," Biórr muttered, remembering his conversation with her a few days gone. "There is no give in her."

"Is there not? Well, she has information that I need. I must find out where my brother is lurking." He frowned, looking at the treeline. "But Brák has not delivered the tool I need to bargain with her, despite them being so close I can almost smell them." He scowled at the shrouded slopes and tugged on his neatly groomed beard. "Perhaps I should learn from you and try your tactic."

Biórr raised an eyebrow at him.

"Kindness," Rotta smiled sharply, and walked towards Orka. Biórr followed.

"Things do not have to be like this," Rotta said to Orka as he fell in beside her. She just looked straight ahead, as if he had not spoken. "My father created a beautiful land for us to live upon, just look at it," Rotta continued in his finest honeyed tones. "Snow-capped mountains, rich forests, flowing rivers, all of it crafted for us. It does not need to be a battleground. It could be a garden." He looked at Orka and received more silence. A scowl twitched his lips, but then he was smiling again. "I could take those chains from you. I want to take those chains from you. You are descended from a god, descended from my brother." He sucked in a long breath. "Granted, he is not my favourite family member, but that does not mean that you and I must be enemies. This world calls you "‘Tainted'. You are not ‘Tainted', you are blessed. And I am fighting now so that you and all like you are given your freedom."

Orka looked at him then, her eyes flickering amber, and then she looked away.

Biórr remembered his conversation with Orka, and how he had said something similar to her.

" Do not trust the promises of gods ," she had said to him. " They broke the world, remember. They did not care for the lives of anyone then, Tainted or not, they used them for their own ends and will do the same again now. " Those words had crawled around inside Biórr's head, refusing to stay silent.

"You could join us," Rotta continued. "I could take those chains from you, give you back your weapons, and you could join our fight against the oppressors of your kind, of our kind. Or you could just leave, go, and find your son and walk away from us in peace, as friends, knowing that if you ever needed me, that I would be here for you, my friendship gladly given."

Orka looked up at the tree slopes, then at Rotta, though Biórr saw her eyes flicker to Red Fain and the long-axe he carried.

Rotta held out his open hand to her. "Take the hand of friendship, end this pain, live in peace with me. And see your son again. All you have to do is tell me what you know about my brother. Tell me where he is he and your life can change immediately, and for the better. What say you?"

Orka stopped and turned to face Rotta, looked him in the eye a long moment.

"No," she said, then turned and began to walk on again.

A muscle twitched on Rotta's face.

No! Biórr heard Rotta's voice inside his head. You say no to me! A god! But outwardly Rotta's face appeared calm, unfazed.

"Friendship is a rare gift, and seldom offered twice," Rotta said to Orka.

She ignored him.

A chuckle from one of the prisoners walking nearby, Dagrun, Jarl Orlyg's son. Red Fain cuffed him with the butt end of his long-axe and the man stumbled, other prisoners around them shifting and growling, battered drengrs whose oaths still steered them.

"Easy," Biórr said, stepping close to the prisoners with his spear in his fist and they shifted.

"Do nothing," Dagrun said and the drengrs calmed.

A voice shouting from the treeline drew all their attention.

Brák emerged from the shadows into the snow, a handful of his crew following him, frost-spiders scuttling around them. Biórr counted four of Brák's crew where there had been twelve. All of them were bloodied, two of them limping. Brák and another carried a sack tied to a spear shaft between them. Something inside was bucking and writhing.

Rotta smiled and looked at Orka.

"Well, now," he grinned. "What have we here?"