CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX ORKA

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

ORKA

O rka dragged herself from the river, coughing and spitting, her mail and woollen underclothes a sodden weight. Breca was on the bank above her, hacking up half of the river, or so it sounded.

"Don't stop here," Orka said. "Into the trees", and she gripped his hand and led him on, half dragging him into the shadowed safety of the treeline. Others of the Bloodsworn were already there, Halja and Gunnar, Lif and S?unn, Glornir and Vol. Lif was chopping at deadwood for a fire. The river curled here, the current sweeping wide into the riverbank and spitting its contents into the weeds and shallows. More of the Bloodsworn were crawling from the river behind Orka.

They had plummeted into the Falinn from the top of Wolfdales, crashed into the icy water like a boulder, and Orka had used every ounce of strength the wolf in her blood could give her to stop her coat of mail from dragging her and Breca to the riverbed. They had burst above the water, gasping in great mouthfuls of air, and the current had grabbed them and swept them downriver until it spat them out on this deep curl.

Orka leaned against a tree and checked her weapons belt, brushed her fingertips across the two seaxes. Felt a wave of anger that she had not returned them to Drekr, had not buried them to their hilts in his flesh.

At least that nieing Ilska is dead.

"He might be dead," Breca said, looking up at Orka.

"Perhaps," she said. She hoped not.

Glornir came to stand beside her, Vol going to the deadwood that Lif had piled and speaking Seier-runes to start a fire. Breca shuffled close to Glornir, leaning against him, and Glornir put a big hand around his shoulder. Together the three of them looked back along the river, saw the slope of Wolfdales in the distance, half of the hill gone, just a ragged line. Snaka reared above it, his head striking down into the hall, the force of it felt in the ground beneath Orka's feet, smashing the side of the hill to rubble. The roar and rumble of the hill collapsing echoed through the forest, Snaka's head pulling out from the devastation and ruin, silhouetted before the sun.

"Can you feel him?" Glornir asked Orka.

"Aye. Like hornets in my thought-cage. A hand squeezing my bones."

"Aye," Glornir grunted.

"How do we fight that?" Breca whispered.

"One battle at a time," Glornir growled. "First the dragon and the rat."

"Heya," Orka agreed, and stamped her feet, puffed misting breath into her hands. The sun had started to sink towards the treeline of the Iron Wood, just a diffuse glow behind heavy cloud.

"Looks like snow," Halja Flat-Nose said as she joined them.

No more Bloodsworn had clawed their way out from the river for a while, but other bodies were floating past them now. Pale-bodied skraeling floating face-down, a young troll, a horse spinning slowly, warriors, thick-haired legs and other dismembered parts of frost-spiders. Shields floated, barrels, carts half submerged, shattered tables and chairs, flotsam from Ulfrir's great hall.

"Well, chief," Gunnar said. "What do we do now?"

"First, we shall dry our clothes and warm our bodies, else we will be frozen solid by dawn, and that will be the end of us doing anything. Then, we must see if we have friends left alive."

There was a whirring of wings in the boughs up above and they all reached for weapons.

"It's me," Vesli squeaked, and Breca cried out for happiness, held his arms out and Vesli flew into them, Breca wrapping the little vaesen tight.

"Vesli happy to see master Breca," the tennúr piped, looking around at them. "Happy to see mistress Orka, happy to see all of you."

"My thanks," Orka said, dipping her head to her, remembering how Vesli had hurled herself at Drekr as he was charging at her.

"Mistress Orka welcome," Vesli said. "Bad man got away," she said with a scowl. Then smiled. "But not all of him", and she reached into the pouch at her belt and pulled out a long tooth, flesh dangling from the root.

Orka smiled at that, and Vesli popped the tooth into her mouth and crunched it.

"Can you help us," Glornir asked Vesli.

"Vesli try help her friends," she said. "How?"

"Search for our friends, find survivors of Elvar's host if you can. We need to regroup. If there are any who have survived that." Glornir nodded at the jagged silhouette of Ulfrir's hall and Snaka, stark against the sinking sun.

As Orka followed Glornir's gaze she felt a snowflake fall and land upon her cheek, soft as a winter's kiss.