CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT GUÐVARR

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

GUDVARR

A gainst all the odds, I am alive , Guevarr thought as he dropped his shield with a clatter, unbuckled his weapons belt, slithered out of his coat of mail and collapsed onto his cloak on the ground, exhaustion dragging him down like a current in his veins. His woollen tunic and linen under-tunic were sweat-stained and stinking, but he did not care, did not have the strength left in him to seek out his kit and change into clean clothes. He was sat close to a fire, snow falling steadily now in flakes big as leaves and he watched fires flicker into life about him as they were kindled across the great swathe of their camp. The ground had changed with Snaka's coming, great ridges of earth running through the camp, trees snapped or fallen, roots grasping at the sky so that all above them was cloud and falling snow. Huge fissures and rents had scarred the ground, but enough of the camp and supplies were left that they could cook and eat.

And sleep , Guevarr thought. And there is only enough food left because more than half of Lik-Rifa's war-host have been slaughtered, crushed, or hurled into the river .

He looked around at the survivors of the last battle, a pitiful few compared to the war-host that had assembled upon these banks only two days gone. He saw warriors limping, the wounded being carried, heard skraeling mourning their dead in their strange, ululating cries. Heard a troll cry out as their leader, Hee in, cauterised a wound with a strip of iron that had been left to heat in the fire. Guevarr knew that there were frost-spiders and night-hags still lurking in the darkness of the forest, but he had seen so many of their dead piled in heaps that he knew their numbers must be vastly reduced.

At one point of the battle, as Lik-Rifa and Rotta had fled, he had been certain that the battle was lost, and that he was going to die.

Thank the dead gods that we have Snaka on our side , he thought, although even the thought of Snaka set his limbs to trembling. At the sight of the father of the gods' serpentine head crashing through the wall of Ulfrir's chamber Guevarr had almost lost control of his bladder and soiled his breeches. He leaned forward and sniffed, grimaced.

Perhaps I did lose a little control of my bladder.

He chose to turn his thoughts away from Snaka and watched as haunches and joints of meat were pulled from barrels and put onto spits over fires or set into pots that bubbled with boiling water.

"Get me some mead, or ale," he said to one of Sigrún's drengrs , a dark-haired woman with a red wound across her jawline who had kindled the fire he was sitting at and was turning a spitted leg of venison. She looked at him a moment, her lip curling, then Jarl Sigrún was heading towards them, walking away from Drekr, Krúsa and Glunn Iron-Grip, the only captains of Lik-Rifa's war-host who had returned to camp so far. The drengr lifted a jug and poured a cup for him, leaned and handed it to him.

"My thanks," he said with a smile and sipped as Sigrún sat beside him.

"Ilska is dead," Sigrún said.

"What?" Guevarr gasped. Despite the fact they had just passed through two days of war he could not conceive of Ilska actually falling in battle.

"Glornir Shieldbreaker slew her, on the hill," Sigrún said. She looked at him and put her hand on his wrist. "And Skalk is dead, too."

Guevarr sucked in a breath and stifled the smile and shout of joy that rose up within him.

Skalk, dead. That nieing , torturing, deceitful, goat-humping arseling. Oh, what a day this has been.

"And Estrid, too," Guevarr said, as if in passing. "She was slain when the bull-man and Berserkirs smashed our shield wall."

Sigrún nodded.

"Well, there is still a wolf to slay, but it looks like we have chosen the winning side, Guevarr, and we have lived to reap the rewards. All has changed with the arrival of Snaka. A new world is dawning, and new powers." She squeezed his wrist. "And we shall be among those powers."

A ripple went through the camp, a hush falling, and Guevarr felt a shift in the air. Abruptly heavy, like a thunderstorm. He looked up, saw Lik-Rifa and Rotta walking into the camp, back in their human forms now, thankfully. Both of them bore the wounds of battle, walked stiffly, blooms of blood on their tunics. Rotta limped and held one arm protectively to his left side. Lik-Rifa had new red wounds across her head and body, one side of her face crusted with dried blood. They walked a step behind a man, taller by head and shoulders than both of them. A milk-pale face, mottled like scales, a sharp ridge of a nose, dark hair tied severely at his nape and eyes that flickered with red-gold fire. The tips of teeth protruded from his dark-veined lips. He wore a grey wool tunic embroidered in gold-swirling serpents edged with red-dyed fur, a belt of leather and gold buckled about his waist.

Dread Snaka, father of the gods.

Guevarr felt a compulsion to stand and walk to him, to throw himself upon his knees and bow, to swear oaths of loyalty.

Snaka stopped and looked around the camp and everything in it as if it all belonged to him. As if the whole world belonged to him.

Which it does, I suppose , Guevarr thought, feeling a flutter of fear in his belly.

I am bored of this feeling; fear is distinctly overrated. I long for a day when I awake and live from dawn to sleep without one moment of fear.

All had stopped what they were doing and turned to look at the gods walking among them as they strode into the camp, came to a stop at its centre. All eyes were fixed upon Snaka, drawn like iron filings to a lodestone. The sense of fear and awe was palpable, a shimmering in the air.

"Kneel before your maker, your master, your king," Rotta cried out, sinking to his knees before Snaka, and Lik-Rifa dropped to one knee, bowed her head.

"My father, my king," her voice tremored through the camp.

Snaka stepped forwards, looking at all those gathered before him, at the hundreds of lives, as if they were his, too.

I suppose we are , Guevarr thought as he stumbled to his feet and knelt before dread Snaka, maker of the world.