CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX BIÓRR

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

BIóRR

B iórr crept through the corridors of Wolfdales, scurrying to the shadows that nestled between the glow and flicker of wall-mounted torches. Some of the tunnels they had travelled were huge, big enough for Rotta to pass through in his rat-body, but now they were moving along smaller tunnels, fashioned for more human-sized bodies. Ever downwards they had crept, Biórr, Rotta and the other rat-bloods, led by Skalk and his fair-haired drengr , passing by open entrances to other tunnels and closed, thick-carved doors. Most of the tunnels were empty, rooms and chambers uninhabited. They had only come across two people so far, and they had been in a chamber with the door open, two naked bodies thrusting and groaning, perhaps celebrating surviving the first day of this battle. They had not survived into the second, Skadi and another staining the bed with their blood.

Biórr's rat-senses were twitching and tingling now, every sound shuddering through him, every scent that drifted through the damp corridors causing him to shiver.

We are in the lair of the wolf , he thought, and the wolf is no friend to rats. He knew that to be seen now, to be discovered, would mean his death, and the rat in his blood was just as aware of that possibility. Its instinct was to flee, to seek darkness and safety, but Biórr knew there was a savagery to the beast in his blood, too, a courage of sorts, especially when the rat was cornered. But to walk willingly into the lair of his enemy, that took a different type of courage. Biórr tried to speak that courage to his beast, encourage it to overrule the almost overwhelming instinct to flee. So far he was managing to do that. Just.

"I know your struggle," Rotta whispered to him as they paused in the shelter of shadow between two torches, Skalk and his drengr moving on ahead. "This is not what I want to be doing, either. The last time I saw Ulfrir he was chaining me to a rock and dripping serpent venom onto my face." Rotta grimaced and snarled. "But sometimes the only way to get a job done properly is to do it yourself."

"Yes, lord," Biórr whispered.

"And besides, I am sure that you will enjoy seeing Elvar one last time. It will be fitting that you strike the blow that will end this war, strike a blow into the slaver's heart."

"Aye," Biórr growled.

Elvar. He remembered the last time he had seen her, the anguish of his betrayal reflected in her face, then the anger.

But she had no right. She was the one happy to hunt down and enslave us Tainted, happy to sell us for coin or hacksilver to the highest bidder. She is the one who has thralled a god.

Yet he also remembered the brush of her lips on his, the touch of her hand upon his scars. The warmth in her eyes as she had lain with him, looked at him as if he mattered .

Skalk beckoned to them, and Rotta ran light-footed and silent through the torchlight, passing another oak door and on to the next patch of shadow, Biórr and the other rat-bloods following him. Estrid, her drengrs and the mercenary chief named Hjalmar had been sent elsewhere in this underground nest of tangled tunnels.

"There," Skalk hissed, pointing. He stood at a curve in the tunnel and Biórr leaned to see a wide-arched door that sat at the end of the corridor. "She is in there."

Rotta waited for the other warriors to reach them, and then he was leading them down the corridor. They reached the door and Rotta turned to Biórr.

"The honour is yours," Rotta whispered. "Do this and your name will live forever in your skáld-songs, a saga greater than the Guefalla. Do this and you will change the world."

Biórr drew his sword, almost without sound because of the sheepskin and grease that lined the leather scabbard, and he put his hand on the ring-handle of the door.

Turned it. A soft click, and he pushed the door. It slid open.

Shadows in the chamber, the flicker of torchlight, at the far end of the room a wide-arched opening, the exit from the bedchamber that Skalk had told them of, that led into the great hall. Faint light pulsed beyond the circular exit, the movement of air and sound suggesting a vast open space beyond it.

He took a slow, careful step into the room, let his rat-blood adjust his vision. He saw a wide bed, a chair beside it, a dark cloak slung over it, belts and weapons draped over the cloak. He blinked, stared, recognised that cloak.

Agnar's bearskin. It is true, then, Elvar became chief.

A dark shape spread on the bed, a deeper shadow, Biórr seeing arms and legs, the glint of a mail coat, a shock of blonde-braided hair.

He lifted his sword.

"CHIEF," a voice screeched as a figure lunged at him from the shadows, a bright spear-point slicing towards him.