CHAPTER THREE ELVAR

CHAPTER THREE

ELVAR

E lvar sat back in her father's throne with a sigh. The seat from which he had ruled Snakavik and all the land as far as the eye could see from this mountaintop fortress.

"My father's seat. My father's hall. My seat, now, my hall, now," she whispered to herself.

"What's that?" a rumbling voice said behind her, and she twisted to look over her shoulder. Hrung stared unsettlingly back at her with his opaque eyes, his giant severed head upon a pedestal of stone.

"Just thinking on life, ancient Hrung," she said. "And how it is so … changeable." Not so long ago I was a warrior among many, fighting in a shield wall, defeated by dragon-born. And now …

She regarded the ruin of her father's hall.

Close to her feet two chests had been placed, both filled with treasure from the god's battleground, the plains of Oskutree. Around them blood still stained the ground, visible here and there as dark patches among the snow that fell gently around her, settling on the dais and hard-packed earth of the hall floor and she pulled her bearskin cloak tighter about her neck. Broken timbers reared like the shattered bones of a great whale where the wolf-god Ulfrir had smashed the hall to kindling and above her a pewter sky sat heavy and bloated with fresh snow. Drengrs had been working to clear the destruction for some time, lifting timbers and rubble to uncover the wounded and remove the dead, drengrs who until yesterday had been oathsworn to her father, Jarl St?rr.

Oathsworn to him no longer, as he is meat in Ulfrir's belly, and I put a sword in his heir, my brother Thorun.

Elvar saw members of the Battle-Grim spread around the hall, Orv the Sneak with his bow in hand, an arrow loosely nocked, Sólín Spittle leaning against a timber column, one hand on the hilt of her sheathed sword, Urt the Unwashed standing close to the entrance, others lurking in the shadows.

They are guarding me, my Battle-Grim. Not that I need guarding now. She glanced at the warriors spread around her like a cupped hand, all of them tall and broad, braided beards and mail-clad, axes and knives hanging from their weapons belts. Over a score of Berserkir .

My Berserkir .

By some strange Galdur-magic, with the death of her father and elder brother the power of control had shifted to Elvar, the next in line to the kingdom, which is what she had wanted, what she had come here for. What she had hoped for.

Be careful what you wish for.

One of the Berserkir stood apart from the others: Berak, dark and hulking. Elvar remembered tracking him to Iskalt Island, hunting him down and finding him in battle with a young bull troll. Her hand went to the troll tusk hanging at her neck. That seemed a lifetime ago. Berak was stooped, talking quietly with Uspa, his wife, and Elvar's Seier-witch. Uspa with her tattooed arms and lower jaw, a seax taken from the plain of Oskutree hanging at her belt. It had been Uspa who had set this new path in motion, Uspa who had told them she knew the way to Oskutree, Uspa who had sworn them all to help find her kidnapped son with the blóe svarie , her Seier-spell.

Uspa who planted this curse in my blood.

"Ahh, that is one of the marvels of life," Hrung said behind her, "how it can change on a knife-edge. It keeps things interesting."

"I doubt my father would agree with you," Elvar said darkly. "Or my brother."

She had killed her brother, cut his throat with her blade after he'd tried to have her slaughtered. Thorun's corpse had been removed from the hall along with the other bodies. There was little left of her father to take away. He had been eaten by Ulfrir.

My father is dead. Long had she dreamed of killing her father. She had hated him, yet at the same time craved his respect. In her imaginings she would always say cutting words to him, see him crumble with grief over his treatment of her, listen to his pleading attempts at a reconciliation. Occasionally she would even allow him to live.

But none of that had happened. Instead, he had been swept up by Skuld and cast into the jaws of a giant wolf, torn to shreds in a heartbeat.

Elvar thought she would have felt elated, victorious, full of a grim satisfaction at the vengeance she owed her father.

All she felt was numb.

"You are right there," Hrung chuckled, Elvar feeling it vibrate through her body. "Life can be fickle."

"Heya," Ulfrir agreed from the shadows, fingering the collar around his neck.

"Ahh, Ulfrir, my friend," Hrung rumbled, "you are a thrall now, which I must admit is not the best life to live, but things could be worse."

"Could they?" Skuld sniffed, scowling at Elvar, who had put the iron collar around hers and her father's necks.

"Aye. You could be just a head, and that is not a life I'd recommend."

Ulfrir tipped his head in acknowledgement.

"Uspa, Berak," Elvar called out, and the Seier-witch and Berserkir approached her.

"Jarl Elvar," they both said.

"Our treasure," Elvar said, gesturing to the two chests at her feet, "they must be moved to my father's treasury." She nodded to a door towards the rear of the shattered hall. "Uspa, protect them with your Seier-words."

Uspa nodded and Berak moved to pick one up.

"Not yet," Elvar said. "I have need of them, first."

On a bench before the dais, close to Elvar, sat her younger brother, Broeir. His eyes kept flickering to ruins of the hall and back, nervously, to Elvar and the living gods who now sat among them.

Should I have killed Broeir, too? Her father would have advised her to. Broeir was the last of her bloodline, the only one who would benefit from her death. Killing me would give him power over the Berserkirs , and that is a great deal of power. But he had surrendered to her, and she had not been able to plunge her sword into him as she had done to the detestable Thorun. She had always liked Broeir.

And I am not my father's daughter. Not in the ways that matter. I refuse to be.

Beside her brother sat her father's Galdurwoman, Silrie. Tall, fair-haired, her face all hard lines, a necklace of bones around her neck. Elvar trusted her less than a viper in her boots, but in the heat of battle Silrie had changed sides and gifted Thorun to her, so for now Elvar would keep the Galdurwoman close, until she had decided what to do with her.

A gust of wind and snow wailed into the room through one of the walls that had been smashed to splintered pulp and Elvar could see crowds gathering in the street beyond to stare in at the carnage.

Not come to see me, I think. She glanced to her left, where Ulfrir stood, changed from his wolf-form back to a man now, wrapped in his wolf-pelt cloak, his grey-black hair framing a sharp-lined and deep-shadowed face, amber eyes burning like coals. His daughter, Skuld, stood beside him, her red hair a smear of colour in the pale hall. Her wings were folded across her back, no longer hidden beneath her cloak. People in the street gawped and pointed. Skuld sneered at them and looked away.

Scuffed footsteps and Sighvat the Fat lumbered into the ruined hall, a sealskin cloak pulled tight around him, a steaming bowl of porridge in his big hand. He approached Elvar on the dais, reached the Berserkir and growled something at them, but they stayed where they were, blocking his way.

"Let him through," Elvar called down to them and they parted, Sighvat stomping through them with a glower.

"… trying to stop me getting to my chief, the arselings," he was muttering as he reached Elvar. "Here, chief," he said, holding out the bowl of porridge. "It's good, I put honey in it myself."

"I'm not hungry," Elvar muttered.

"'Course you are," Sighvat said, "you just don't realise it. Sometimes the killing can rob your appetite, but, trust me, you're hungry. And being hungry steals your wits from you, and right now we need our deep-cunning chief with all her wits about her. So, please, eat." He offered the bowl of porridge again and to Elvar's surprise her stomach growled. This time she took it.

Sighvat smiled, nodding, then looked around at the devastation in the hall, at the heaps of the dead, where they had been piled, at carpenters and builders working at the clearing and repairing of the hall, at people gathering in the street, and he puffed his cheeks and blew out a long breath.

"I've a feeling your plan worked out well, but …" he looked around and leaned closer. "What do we do now?" he whispered.

Good question.

"We have a task to do," she said to Sighvat, one hand going to the knotwork scar hidden beneath her sleeve of mail. The scar that was the seal and reminder of her blood oath. "Best we get on and do it."

"Aye," Sighvat muttered glumly. Absently he put the back of his hand to his mouth and bit down, pulled out a long splinter and spat it on the ground.

Figures entered the hall, approaching through the snow and debris. Grend led them, his weathered crag of a face stern, a woollen cloak wrapped around him. One hand rested on the head of his axe hanging at his belt. Beside him walked Gytha, champion of Jarl St?rr, dark hair braided tight, an old scar running from her cheek into her top lip.

Yesterday she fought against me. What will today bring, I wonder?

Behind them more than two score men and women followed, all warriors wrapped in fur and mail, weapon-clad.

Grend reached the foot of the dais where the Berserkir stood guard and paused.

"Move," Elvar said with a flick of her hand and the Berserkir parted.

"I have brought them, as you asked," Grend said as he came to stand beside Elvar, shuffling close to her right side and turning to stare balefully out at the crowd gathered before them. "Your father's petty jarls, Snakavik's captains, and the chiefs of all the mercenary bands who answered your father's call."

Elvar sat and looked at them, met their eyes. She saw questions there, fear, wonder, resentment. Greed. Many eyes flickered between Ulfrir, Skuld and the chests at Elvar's feet.

She sucked in a deep breath and stood. She still wore her bloodstained brynja from the battle, her sword hanging at her hip and a gold ring wrapped about her arm. Agnar's black bearskin cloak hung about her shoulders. She focused first on Gytha and her father's drengrs .

"I have slain the man you were sworn to," Elvar said, relieved that her voice did not betray the depths of her worry. "Gytha, what will you do now?"

Gytha took a step forward and a handful of Berserkir growled.

"We fought you and lost," Gytha said with a shrug, ignoring the Berserkirs . "To my thinking, Jarl St?rr is dead, and you are his eldest still breathing. You are our jarl now, by birthright and by battle claim. I would swear my oath to you, to serve you as I served your father."

Jarl. She felt a flutter in her belly at that. Dread and excitement mingled.

Elvar nodded, trying not to let the relief she felt etch itself across her face. "And my father's drengrs ?" she asked, letting her eyes move slowly across the mail-clad warriors gathered behind Gytha.

"They feel the same as I," Gytha said.

"I would hear it from them."

"We are ready to swear you our oaths," a man said, tall and wiry, a red-haired beard.

"Aye," another drengr said, and one by one each captain stepped forward and added their voice.

"Good," Elvar nodded. Her eyes moved to a handful of men and women, all mail-clad, with rings of silver or gold about their arms. Her father's petty jarls.

"And you all?" Elvar said. "You served my father well. Will you serve me?"

A woman stepped forwards, mouse-haired, broad and squat and clothed in a fine brynja , two bearded axes thrust through her weapons belt.

"Runa Red-Axe," Elvar said.

"We swore our oaths to your father, and you have bested him. You rule here now. We will swear our oaths to you," Runa said.

Elvar nodded. "I will hear your oaths, but save them until you know where it will take you." She shifted her gaze to look at the other group of warriors gathered behind the jarls and drengrs . "And what of you chieftains and your mercenary bands?"

"We were sworn to Jarl St?rr's war against Queen Helka," a man said. A tangle of black hair, his beard covering most of his face, a shield with two ravens hanging loosely in his grip. "We will happily take your silver for the same job." His eyes flickered to the treasure chests at Elvar's feet.

"You were sworn to my father's war, Hjalmar Peacemaker, chief of the Fell-Hearted," Elvar said. "But that is not my war. I have a different battle to fight."

Uspa moved away from Berak and came to stand at Elvar's left hand. Elvar noticed the Berserkir did not try to stop her.

"My battle is against Lik-Rifa, the dragon-god. Against her dragon-born children, against her dragon-cult followers, and against the vaesen that have flocked to her."

A silence filled the hall, gusts of wind and snow swirling.

"Fighting a god, now that is different from fighting a jarl. More expensive than fighting a jarl, I would say," a fair-haired woman called out, a silver-gilt sword at her hip. "Two things are needed for us to side with you. More silver than your father promised, and the knowledge that we will have a chance to live and spend it. Fighting a dragon is no small thing."

"Fair points, Ingvild Wave-Roamer," Elvar said. "I have been to Oskutree, I have seen the battleground of the gods, I have seen the dragon set free, and she is fearsome. But she is just one dragon, and I have Ulfrir the wolf-god and his winged daughter, Skuld, and they are fearsome, too. I have my father's Berserkir , I have the jarls and drengrs of Jarl St?rr, and I have the feared Battle-Grim. And I have a river of gold and silver to pay you all." She stood and kicked one of the chests, its lid bursting open to reveal a heap of gold and silver coins, cups, jewellery, and gems spilling out. "And I have enough left over to pay a thousand more warbands like you. If you follow me, I cannot promise you will all survive, but those who do, you will be rich beyond your wildest imaginings."

Another silence, Sighvat leaning close to whisper. "You speak well, you almost make me want to go and fight a dragon. Almost."

And then Hjalmar Peacemaker punched his arm into the air.

"Jarl Elvar," he bellowed, his eyes never leaving the open chest of treasure. "Jarl Elvar, Jarl Elvar."

Every warrior in the room raised their arm and took up the cry.