CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN ELVAR

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

ELVAR

E lvar woke with a jolt, not knowing where she was. Sounds filtered through to her. Shouting, the clash of steel. The world came crashing in and she heard Sólín's voice, lunged for the chair with her weapons, grabbed her sword and ripped it from its scabbard, gripped the slim-hafted axe with her other hand, turned.

Flickers and crackles of blue light as Sólín traded blows with a shadowed form, her Oskutree-spear illuminating the room in stark, fractured bursts with each strike and swing of the blade. She was pushing a warrior back towards the open door, other, shadowed forms pressing through and around the figure and then Sólín was stepping forwards, stabbing. A gurgled gasp, Sólín ripping her spear from a warrior's throat, dark blood spurting. Elvar jumped onto the bed, heard Sólín grunt and saw her crumple around a sword in her belly, saw her drop to her knees as the sword was ripped free in a spray of brynja rings and blood.

"SóLíN," Elvar yelled and leaped. Glimpsed Thorguna come roaring across the room, an avalanche of muscle and mail, an axe in each fist. Elvar crashed into the knot of figures, sent them falling as Sólín sagged to the floor. Elvar struggled with someone, her sword arm pinned beneath the figure, snarled and raised her hand-axe, chopped down hard and felt it crunch into bone, a splatter of blood across her face, a form slumping beneath her, Thorguna roaring above her, the sound of steel chopping through mail into flesh, screams and a hand was grabbing Elvar and hauling her to her feet. She stood there gasping, took a step back to stand shoulder to shoulder with Thorguna, saw Sólín on the ground, lying in a pool of her own blood, lifeless eyes staring. Felt a flush of rage at that. Other bodies lay tangled on the floor, great red wounds in their flesh from Thorguna's axes, just one figure rising from the heap. A dark-haired man, a sword in his fist. Elvar raised her sword and axe, and froze.

It was Biórr.

He looked at her with his dark, sad eyes, more beard on his face now, his hair braided, two black raven-feathers tied into it with silver wire. Still handsome.

"Kill her," a voice from the shadows snapped. Figures loomed behind Biórr, pressing through the open door in a cluster, and he lunged at her. She swept the blow away with her sword, took a step back as he backswung at her head, and Thorguna did not wait for the others. With a ravening, blood-curdling howl she threw herself in a spitting, frothing frenzy at them, axes swinging. Voices screamed, shouting, Elvar stepping to her right and slashing her sword at Biórr's shoulder, saw him move to block, which opened up his right side, and Elvar snaked her hand-axe out, so light it was adder-fast, scoring a red line across Biórr's cheek and neck, chopping through brynja rings as if they were leather, and she was stepping back.

"I am going to bleed you, for Agnar," Elvar snarled at him.

"Agnar the slaver , you mean," Biórr hissed, a new glint in his eyes, flecked colours spiralling, and his sword was stabbing at her, faster than she thought possible, forcing her back, step by shuffling step. A lunge, followed by an overhead swing, Elvar stepping away, the blade catching her shoulder and arm, her coat of mail holding, a flicked wrist and the sword tip was coming for her throat, a frantic sweep of her arm to deflect it, swung with her axe but Biórr was no longer there, pivoted on her left foot to take herself out of range, but he was on her. A flurry of blows, Elvar's sword and axe just blocking each one, and they were stepping apart, both breathing heavily, Elvar almost at the doorway to the tree branch that led out of her chamber into the great hall.

Behind Biórr Elvar saw that Thorguna was carving red ruin, holding all who were trying to press in through the doorway.

"Oh, this is ridiculous," she heard a voice say. "Skalk, end this."

She saw a flicker of red flames around the tip of a wooden staff. Heard a voice.

" F?ra, kasta, " the voice cried out. There was a crack that rippled through the floor and Thorguna and all those in the doorway were hurled into the room, falling and tumbling, Elvar and Biórr staggered, too, stumbling back a handful of paces onto the platform beyond her room. More warriors swept into the chamber, five or six of them, followed by two men. Skalk, and Rotta, tall and smiling.

"For goodness' sake, get up," he said to the warriors who had fallen, then looked at Biórr. "We do not have time for this, I have things to do. End her."

Thorguna was clambering to her feet, stepping back and sweeping her axes up, growling and beckoning at the warriors surrounding her, stabbing at her and stepping away, worrying at her like hounds around a bear. Biórr came at Elvar again. The clash and grate of steel, sparks flying, and Elvar was forced back one step at a time, off the platform and into the stairwell carved into the tree, heard voices shouting from far below. A horn rang out.

Biórr's sword snaked through her defence, stabbed into her belly, but her brynja held, though the wind was knocked from her, and she stumbled back, gasping for air. Behind Biórr she heard Thorguna roar, saw blood streaming from a wound in her shoulder, Rotta leaning against a timber column with his arms folded, and then the warriors spread around her were turning, shouting, Elvar glimpsing Grend and Gytha burst through the doorway behind them, both of them mail-clad, shields and sharp steel in their fists.

More voices from below, more horns blowing in the great hall.

"Finish her, or I will," Rotta shouted at Biórr.

Elvar shuffled back, one step, two, put her weight on her back foot. Biórr stepped after her and she pushed off hard from her back foot, straight at Biórr, raised her arm as he swung at her, trusting her Oskutree brynja to hold. Felt a crunch in her side and a rib crack, maybe two, swept her arm down to wrap around Biórr's sword arm, trapping it, stepped in close and head-butted him across the bridge of his nose, a burst of blood, and she was leaning, hooking her axe behind his leg and wrenching it back, slicing it through muscle and sinew. They staggered together, locked in a grip, turned half a circle so Biórr was stumbling back down the branch towards the trunk of the tree, and he was tripping, falling, slamming onto his back. Elvar kicked his sword from his grip, sent it tumbling off the branch and into air and stamped on his wrist, touched her sword point to his throat.

"You nieing betrayer," she snarled.

"You have betrayed us all, thralled a god," he shouted back at her. "You are worse than Agnar, worse than all of them."

"I have set Ulfrir free, set all the Tainted free," she growled down at him, hating him, and yet something stayed her hand.

"You have done what?" he said, eyes widening.

"Did your rat-god not bother to tell you? Ulfrir and the Tainted are free."

The soft scrape of swift footsteps behind her, she half turned, felt a hand across her forehead, a grip like iron, twisted.

"You should have chosen the rat, not the wolf," a voice snarled into her ear. There was an impact on her neck, like a punch.

"No," she heard Biórr's voice shout.

She opened her mouth to speak, but could not, choking on something in her throat. She coughed, hot blood gushing out in an explosion from her mouth. Then the hand holding her head was gone, other hands pushing her, and she was stumbling towards the edge of the stairwell, legs weak, falling. Distantly, as if from a far way off, she heard Grend scream.