CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE VARG

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

VARG

V arg sidestepped a spear thrust, hooked the shaft with his bearded axe and dragged his opponent off balance, swung his cleaver and it chopped into their shoulder, carving through ring mail and deep into flesh and bone. A scream as he wrenched the cleaver free, slashed at the warrior's face with his axe and sent the woman falling away, her face a red ruin, one arm hanging limp, muscle and tendon severed. She stumbled into a sea-chest and fell into ?sa, who spun around and buried her axe in the woman's neck.

Varg glanced around. He was stood in the prow of the drakkar at the Sea-Wolf 's stern. Most of the druzhina had been slain. The hurled spears and sight of Gunnar Prow and Halja Flat-Nose sailing by on the top-rail of another drakkar had distracted the druzhina for a few moments and the Bloodsworn had taken full advantage of that, Glornir leading their shield wall forwards in a rush that had stormed over the first line of archers and pushed through so that the Bloodsworn had spilled onto the enemy drakkar 's deck. There had been a savage melee where Varg's wolf had consumed him in a frenzied madness, and now he stood breathless and exhausted, chest heaving, leaning with one hand on an oar-chest.

R?kia was close by, Edel and ?sa, too, Glornir a little further down the deck, a handful of Bloodsworn with him. He stood facing a dozen druzhina , their rune-caster behind them, surrounded by a dome of red-glowing runes. One of the Bloodsworn with Glornir hurled their spear and it hit the runes in a flare of sparks and flame, instantly incinerated, a cloud of ash blown away on the breeze.

The rune-wielder had his arms raised, was shouting guttural words that Varg did not understand, red runes flaring to life and crackling through the sky, meeting Vol's and Iva's spells in explosions and fountains of flame and frost cascaded down from above the Sea-Wolf . Slowly the rune-wielder turned to look at Glornir and the Bloodsworn. Varg saw tendons bulging in his neck, mouth twisted in a grimace.

A scream from the Sea-Wolf , rage and pain mingled.

"Vol," Glornir growled, and was turning, lumbering back along the drakkar 's deck, leaping at the Sea-Wolf 's top-rail, using the blade of his long-axe to heave himself up and over, back to the deck of the Sea-Wolf . Varg and the others followed, hauling themselves up and slithering over the top-rail, Varg thudding down onto timber decking.

Ahead of him Einar and Svik were close to Vol, who stood in the middle of a red and blue conflagration, flames hissing, quenched by frost, fresh flames melting the ice, great billowing clouds of steam, and before her stood another rune-wielder, striding down the deck of the Sea-Wolf towards her, red runes crackling and curved around him like a protective hand. Each step he took was slow and laboured, as he ploughed through Vol's ice-storm. A score of druzhina came with him. Einar Half-Troll howled and ran at them, Svik, Refna and a knot of children a pace behind him.

Glornir bellowed and charged towards Vol's attackers, Varg and the others following. Vol stood with a snarl on her face, veins bulging, sweat-drenched, shifting her rune-spells to focus on this man. Blue, frost-touched runes blazed to life in the air before her and she hurled them at the approaching man, Varg seeing them explode in bursts of incandescent sparks against his rune-shield. His mouth was moving, red runes flaming to life, and he hurled them at Vol. She staggered back a step, her shield bowing, ice-blue runes hissing and crackling, but it rippled and held.

There was a clash of steel as Einar fell upon the druzhina guard, his axe splintering a shield and breaking the warrior's arm, Svik blocking a blow aimed at Einar's back, his sword snaking out, stabbing into a throat as he danced away. Refna and the children swarmed over another druzhina , clawing and biting, the warrior dragged to the ground. The druzhina circled them, penning Einar and Svik, spears jabbing at them. A blade punched into Svik's hip and he cried out, stumbled. Another druzhina stepped in, sabre raised high over Svik's head.

Varg screamed, a surge of fear in his belly, heard R?kia yelling, Glornir bellowing, Edel and ?sa howling, but they were all too far away.

The sabre sliced down at Svik's neck, and then a body was crashing into the druzhina , a woman with blonde-braided hair, laced with grey, the two of them hitting the ground, rolling apart. The woman came up in a snarling crouch, lips drawn back, teeth sharp, eyes blazing amber. She wore a coat of mail and helm, gripped a long-axe in her fists. A sweeping blow, low to high, axe head slicing up from hip to jaw, and the druzhina was hurled backwards in an eruption of steel and blood. The fair-haired woman rose, turned, still snarling, swung her long-axe and chopped into the neck of another druzhina , almost severing his head, the man collapsing in a fountain of blood. Then other warriors were there, carving into the druzhina about Einar and Svik, a woman dressed in leather and fur like a tracker-hunter with short hair and a slim-shafted spear, another warrior in mail with shield and spear, a child between them with a shield almost bigger than his body, hacking out with a hand-axe, and two more, a man and woman with black shields in their fists.

Gunnar and Halja , Varg realised. And, of course, he had seen the blonde-haired woman before, too. At the Grimholt, a pile of corpses about her.

Orka Skullsplitter.

In moments they cut through the druzhina in arcs of blood, a few heartbeats later Glornir reaching them and roaring as he ploughed into the last druzhina with his shoulder, slamming them to the ground and stamping on their head. Then Varg and the others were there, but their enemy were fallen. They stood there a handful of moments, breathing hard, looking for someone to fight. Glornir grabbed Orka and pulled her to him in a bear-crushing hug.

"WARE," a voice screamed, and Einar was shoving Orka and Glornir away as the rune-wielder drew nearer, his shield of flaming runes sizzling and blackening the deck as he approached. The child with Orka ran at the rune-wielder with his axe raised high, his face twisted and growling like a young wolf cub, but Orka grabbed his tunic and hauled him back, throwing herself and the child out of the rune-wielder's way. He walked through them, the Bloodsworn scattering around him, heat rolling from him in waves as he set his eyes upon Vol and began a new song, high and discordant, Varg hearing it in his head like the wind stirring scratching thorns.

Then another voice cried out, Varg turning to see the rune-wielder from the drakkar moored to the Sea-Wolf 's stern step from the top-rail onto the Sea-Wolf 's deck, his druzhina still about him. He was chanting and casting runes as he came forwards, spells rippling to life and spinning in the air before his shield of runes.

New rune-spells began to form in the air before both of the rune-wielders, round as shields, turning slowly, growing brighter, shifting from red flames to amber, then to white incandescence and the rune-wielders were shrieking and casting the flames at Vol. She snarled, sung out her own song, high and keening, as the white heat of the runes hit her ice-shield. An explosion of sparks, engulfing Vol, a cloud hissing into instant life, heat and boiling steam bursting across the Sea-Wolf like a thunderclap, hurling Varg and the Bloodsworn to the ground.