CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX BIÓRR

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

BIóRR

B iórr led his horse out of a stable into the courtyard of Darl's Galdur tower. Horns were braying throughout the town, a wild cacophony that set Biórr's blood tingling, and everywhere he looked was frantic motion and fractured sound, a building tension and excitement almost tangible in the air.

We are going to war.

He felt it in his blood, a savage blend of fear and excitement coursing through his veins.

Tennúr whirled in the air above the courtyard and warriors were everywhere, and skraeling, too, milling in clustered knots. Biórr saw Raven-Feeders with black feathers in their hair, dragon-born, drengrs from Darl who had sworn their oaths to Lik-Rifa, all tending to horses, leading them from stables or tied to rail-posts, putting saddle-rugs on their backs, cinching saddle-girths tight, checking hooves. The sweet scent of dung was thick in the air, along with the nostril-sting of ammonia, horses neighing, stamping on the hard-packed earth of the courtyard. Biórr looked for Red Fain and saw the old warrior hauling himself up onto the driving bench of a wagon, favouring his injured leg. He made for him, leading his horse and weaving through the throng.

"Careful, old man," Biórr said as he reached Fain, who was sitting on the driving bench, grumbling to himself and massaging his thigh, slipping his new long-axe beneath his feet and reaching for the reins. Harek sat beside Red Fain, and another dozen children sat in the back of the wagon. "You do not want to fall from there. It's a long way down for an old man like you, might break your bones."

"Old man!" Fain grunted. "It will be your bones that are broken if you don't watch that mouth of yours."

Biórr laughed as he shrugged his shield from his back and hooked it onto his saddle, climbed up onto the back of his horse. He looked across at Fain.

"This is it," he said to Fain. "After all these years of hardship, it is happening."

"Aye, lad," Fain said. "Time to change the world. Make it right." He looked down at Harek beside him, then back at the children seated in the wagon behind him. "Time to save these bairns from being treated like animals, save them from a life of thraldom."

"Aye," Biórr agreed. "And time to avenge our fallen."

Red Fain's mouth twisted, white moustaches of his beard twitching, and he nodded.

A fresh, raucous blowing of horns and silence descended over the courtyard.

Lik-Rifa strode from the Galdur tower, dark hair braided and bound with gold wire into one thick coil that rested upon her shoulder like a black-scaled serpent. She was majestic in a coat of brass-gilded mail, a red-wool cloak trimmed in white fox-fur about her shoulders, a slim sword in a fine-tooled scabbard at her hip. Ilska stalked at one shoulder, all black-oiled mail and cold-malice glare. Drekr tall and broad and brooding as a sea-storm was at Lik-Rifa's other shoulder, his dead brother's long-axe in one fist. Rotta sauntered out of the tower behind them, wearing a coat of mail and wolf-pelt cloak, one arm about the waist of a woman. A dragon-cultist led his horse to him, and he kissed the woman and climbed into the saddle, looked at the host gathered in the courtyard, his eyes somehow finding Biórr, and he smiled and dipped his head. A tall grey gelding was led to Lik-Rifa, and she swung elegantly onto its back, Ilska and Drekr mounting their own horses, and Lik-Rifa looked at those gathered in the courtyard. Her face rippled and shimmered, her jaw extending, eyes flickering to red-embered life.

"WE RIDE FOR WAR," she bellowed in her dragon-voice, Biórr feeling it reverberate in his chest, his horse dancing backwards.

"WE RIDE TO GIVE THE WOLF A RED DEATH," Lik-Rifa roared, and all in the courtyard yelled their battle cries, the surge of volume sending crows squawking in startled protest from the Galdur tower. And then Lik-Rifa was riding out of the courtyard, through the gates and into the streets of Darl. Tennúr whirled above her like a flock of starlings, and hyrndur buzzed in wreaths and clusters. A clatter and rumble of hooves and all were following her from the courtyard, Biórr's blood thrumming with the power of what they were doing.

Rotta rode past Biórr.

"With me, my young rat-blood," Rotta said and, with a nod to Fain, Biórr urged his horse to keep pace with Rotta's. He fell in beside the rat-god, who rode just behind Lik-Rifa, Ilska and Drekr. Biórr saw Brák and his crew riding close behind Drekr.

More warriors were waiting beyond the courtyard. Hundreds of Tainted, come at the call of Lik-Rifa. Some stood alone, others in clusters, some were clearly families. All had a wild, half-starved, fanatical look about them as they stared at Lik-Rifa.

She has given them hope. Given them the chance to step out of the shadows and live without fear.

They fell in alongside the war-host, and as they rode through the streets of Darl more flocked to Lik-Rifa's side. Biórr saw Glunn Iron-Grip mounted on a dark bay as he emerged from a street, leading a few score drengrs on horseback, more marching on foot behind them. Captains of Darl and other petty jarls joined them as they wound their way through Darl's streets, swelling the procession so that when Biórr twisted in his saddle to look back he could not see the end of the column through the winding streets.

Slowly they made their way through the town, the ground levelling as they descended the hill and drew near to the river with its tangle of piers, wharves and barns, the host growing ever larger as more joined them; groups of skraeling in tens or twenties, dragon cultists, petty jarls with their retinues, groups of drengrs, mercenary bands come to the call Ilska had sent out into Vigrie, looking for coin or land promised once Vigrie was conquered and ready to be carved up like a Yule-Blot pie.

Rotta looked wistfully at the multitude of longships moored at the piers and shifted in his saddle.

"My arse would much rather be sailing to Snakavik than riding," Rotta said.

"Why are we riding?" Biórr asked. He had thought it the wrong decision when he had heard the news. "It will take us so much longer to get to Snakavik."

"Aye," Rotta agreed, nodding. "But there are many who follow my dear sister that will not sail. Frost-spiders do not like the water, I am told, and neither do night-hags. Troll's, neither, although I can see the sense of that. Can you imagine two bull trolls fighting over a mate on the deck of a longship." He shook his head. "They would sink the ship."

Biórr nodded at that.

"And Lik-Rifa will not consider splitting her war-host, with those that can sailing, and the rest marching, all of us meeting at some suitable point near to Snakavik. Perhaps that is because she loves her followers and cannot bear to be parted from them," he gave Biórr a knowing smile, "or perhaps she thinks Ulfrir is too wolf-cunning and would make us pay dearly for splitting our forces, fall upon each group with his full strength and destroy them." He sighed. "I think she gives him too much credit, he is a mange-ridden runt after all, but …" He shrugged. "You do not tell my sister what to do."

They rode along the river-docks, and ahead of them figures stepped from a pier. A band of warriors, forty or fifty of them, all looking like they were close-kin to battle, mail-clad and grim-faced, shields with a gold eye painted upon them. A warrior led them, lank fair hair tied at his nape, a thin straggle of beard, stepping out towards the head of the column, where Lik-Rifa rode with her head held high. She slowed at the sight of him, looked down at him.

"I come to offer my sword and axe, my oathsworn to your service," the warrior called out.

"Help me slay the wolf and you will have all you seek," Lik-Rifa said.

"I am—" the man began, but Lik-Rifa waved a hand, cutting him off.

"I do not care who you are," she said, and rode on.

Ilska stopped beside the man and looked at him.

"I know you, Sterkur death-in-the-eye," she said.

"And I you, Ilska the Cruel," Sterkur said.

She looked to the man who stood at Sterkur's shoulder, tall and black-bearded, a coat of mail and seax at his belt.

"And you?" she said.

"I am Leif Kolskeggson," the man said. "New to Sterkur's crew."

"And why would you fight for the dragon?" Ilska asked them.

"For coin, for fair-fame," Sterkur said. "To be on the winning side." He gave a wry smile. "What else is there?"

"I fight because I am told the Bloodsworn fight against the dragon," Leif said. "And I wish the Bloodsworn dead."

Drekr overheard and rode to them.

"You are welcome here, then," he growled. "And you have come to the right place. We will see the Bloodsworn in the ground."

Leif looked up at Drekr and gave a curt nod.

"Fall in with us," Ilska said. "You need bring nothing but your warriors and your weapons, we have food and drink enough for all Vigrie." She gestured behind her, to the scores of wagons that filled the roads behind them, then she was urging her horse on, Rotta and Biórr riding past Leif, Sterkur and his crew as they waited for a place where they could join the huge column that wound out of Darl like a dark serpent slithering from a corpse.

Slowly they left the town behind them and rode into open meadows flanked by scattered knots of woodland. Bands of trolls joined them, twenty or thirty of the grey-skinned creatures at a time, each one its own troll-clan. All of them left rough dwellings behind them, hewn from trees, strewn with bones and reeking of troll-shite. Frost-spiders scuttled from the woodlands in great clusters, night-hags floating alongside them like banks of black-winged smoke, spertus clambering from streams to scurry alongside the war-host, until it looked to Biórr like the whole world seethed with Lik-Rifa's followers.

"Surely we are unbeatable," Biórr muttered.

"Ah, but I have heard that before," Rotta said grimly, "and it turned out badly then. Let's not count our dead wolves until they lay bleeding and lifeless before us."