CHAPTER SEVEN ORKA

CHAPTER SEVEN

ORKA

A distant scream echoed through the vale and Orka looked to the treeline, allowing the wolf in her blood to sharpen her senses. She heard another scream faint on the wind, followed by the sweet scent of blood, a long pause, and then footsteps crashing through undergrowth, shouting.

She was bound with chains at the wrists, walking among four or five score prisoners taken from Svelgarth. They were far back in a long column that wound its way through a frozen vale, steep-sided slopes cloaked with pine rearing to either side. The sky was the colour of lead, bloated clouds gilt with silver.

She glanced around, saw that others were looking into the trees, too. With her wolf-eyes she could make out the angular forms and movement of frost-spiders in the tree boughs, and the shadow-smooth gliding of night-hags among the pines, both vaesen that disliked the daylight and so were clinging to the gloom. But they were all just within the treeline. The screams Orka heard had been further away, higher up the slopes and deeper into the woodland.

"You heard it, too," a voice said beside her. Biórr, her almost constant guard.

Orka said nothing, just continued to stare into the distance, but her wolf sense could see nor hear anything else. Whatever it was, whatever had happened, it was over.

"You should not be breathing," Biórr muttered beside her. "You do not deserve to be breathing."

Deserve has nothing to do with it , she thought. And believe me, I feel the same way about you.

"You should answer, when you are spoken to," Biórr said, and she could taste the hate and rage pulsing from him. She gave him only her silence. He wasn't worth anything else.

"I do not understand you," Biórr said and poked her in the arm with a finger.

Orka just looked at him, then looked away.

"You are Tainted, and yet you fight against us," Biórr continued. "We fight against the slavery of our kind, against those who have enslaved and tortured us for countless years. Centuries. We are fighting for our freedom. For your freedom. You should have joined us, not fought against us."

Orka turned her head to look back at Biórr, and gave him a cold, flat stare.

"What?" he said.

"I care nothing for the whims and wars of gods," she growled. "And you are an idiot if you believe they care anything for you."

"What do you care for?" Biórr prodded.

Orka wished this young zealot would close his flapping lips. She wanted to make him close his lips.

"What do you care for, then?" he repeated.

Images of Thorkel and Breca flashed through her thought-cage, memories that stirred a pain in her chest and a fire in her veins.

"I cared for my husband," she growled at him, "and our kind murdered him. I care for my son, and our kind stole him from me. You claim to be working to free the Tainted from enslavement and torture? Tell them that." She snorted, looking pointedly back to the group of children and prisoners.

Biórr frowned, seemed to think about that. He was young, slim and handsome, perhaps a little older than Lif, but despite the rage that leaked from his gaze his eyes made him seem older, as if he had seen and suffered much.

"That is unfortunate, I admit," Biórr said.

Unfortunate , she felt her wolf stir to anger, surging in her veins, her own rage bubbling, boiling.

"But these are hard times, and hard deeds are needed if we are going to change this world."

Orka curled her lip. "Nothing will change," she said, her voice cold, emotionless. "Perhaps you will remove a dozen tyrants and replace them with one."

"No, it will be different, we are not slavers, we will make a new world, a fair world. Lik-Rifa and Rotta will set us free," Biórr said. "That is what I am trying to explain to you. How can you not understand that?"

"You are a misguided fool to believe them," Orka sighed. "The sheep follows the farmer blindly and with trust. That does not mean it won't get eaten. Do not trust the promises of gods. They broke the world, remember. They did not care for the lives of anyone then, Tainted or not, they used them for their own ends and will do the same again now."

Biórr was silent as they walked on, her words silencing him for a while. She hoped that was the end of it and looked back to the treeline, wondering where Breca was, if he was safe with Gunnar and the others. Hoped that they were all together and far from here. Hoped that Gunnar would take Breca to the Bloodsworn, to Glornir.

"Perhaps you are right," Biórr said eventually, "but I do not think so. And at least we must try, or we will never know." He looked at her, the rage in his eyes dimmed now. "We did take your son, but he was not harmed. I swear. I taught him to play tafl. We treated him well."

Treated him well.

"You murdered his father in front of him," Orka snarled. "You took him from his home, took him from me ."

Biórr nodded, some guilt showing. "Not me, but yes … Drekr is a hard man. This world has made him hard." He looked up at the sky. "Things are complicated, I admit," he said. "I just wish that us Tainted could stand together, not fight each other, that is all. Not that there is that option for you now." She saw the fire of his anger kindle and flare again. "You have killed my friends and I hate you for it," he spat. "They were good men. You have taken Myrk's eye. You have hurt and scarred Rotta. You have slain countless others. You have made no friends here."

Orka rolled her eyes and snorted. I do not want them.

They walked on in silence.

The sun was sinking behind the mountains, a soft pewter glow through the clouds, and shadows were thick in the vale when horns blew and slowly the marching column staggered to a rippling, segmented halt. Sacks and barrels of food were unloaded from wagons, fire pits scratched out in the snow, tents raised and fire kindled. Biórr set about separating the prisoners into groups of ten or twelve and food was handed out, hard bread, cold strips of beef and pork, seal and whale meat in brine.

Orka sat facing the fire, a drengr from Svelgarth one side of her, a woman with a child the other. She looked into the flames, slowly, gently tested the chain between her wrists, allowed the wolf to trickle through her blood, giving her new strength. She strained, muscles taut, gritted her teeth, felt a vein throb in her temple, looked for the slightest movement in the links, but the chain did not give.

The sound of hooves and riders cantering back down the column, Myrk at the head of a half-dozen dragon-born. They rode past warriors and skraeling, past a long line of wagons, most of them full with supplies taken from the sack of Svelgarth. Sitting upon the driver's bench of one of them Orka saw the white-haired man she had mauled, a child sitting beside him. She realised it was Harek, the lad who had been her Breca's friend, back in Fellur village. That felt like another life, before Thorkel was killed and Breca taken. Behind them, in the wagon bed she saw rows of children sitting, more of the Tainted who had been stolen. She recognised one of them, dark-haired, heavy-browed. Bjarn, Uspa's son.

He did not escape, then, during the chaos of our raid.

The drum of hooves grew louder, Myrk and her riders closer and Orka blew out a long, soft breath, let her chains fall slack. She chewed on a piece of hard bread.

"I am going to kill you," Myrk said cheerfully when she saw Orka, then gave Biórr a smile, who was stirring a pot over the fire pit. "Take the stragglers from the back," she called out as she slid from her horse and took Biórr in an embrace, kissing him hard. The riders with her rode on, past the bulk of the prisoners and circling seven or eight of the stragglers from the rear of the column who had fallen behind and were being harried by skraeling with spears and whips. Most of them were injured and limping, a few children among them. They started to scream as they saw Myrk's riders, tried to run, but they were herded out and away from the column, towards the treeline.

It was almost full dark now, the glow of the fresh-lit fire pits making the shadows deeper and darker, but the wolf in Orka's blood showed her what was happening.

Shapes emerged from the treeline, frost-spiders scuttling, night-hags flowing like mist, moving swiftly towards the prisoners. Myrk's riders and the skraeling stabbed with spears at the prisoners to stop them fleeing back towards the warband, their screams rising, laced with panic. Then the first of the frost-spiders was on them, leaping, legs wrapping around a woman, both of them crashing to the ground. A gurgled scream which dwindled to a bubbling groan. Others in the group beat at the frost-spider but then more of the vaesen were on them, leaping, biting, and the night-hags swept into the group. A child broke from the circle and ran wailing back towards the column, a frost-spider speeding after her, leaping and fangs biting as the two of them fell to the ground. The child screamed.

The drengr beside Orka surged to his feet and took a step towards the prisoners, but Myrk kicked at his ankle and he stumbled, a hiss of steel and her seax was at his throat.

"One more step and you will join them," she hissed at the drengr . Orka could see the knife-edge of indecision war within the warrior.

"Sit, Hagal," a voice said: Dagrun, Jarl Orlyg's son, who was sitting on the far side of the fire pit, glowering at Myrk.

"Listen to your chained chief," Myrk said with a smile, "or don't," she shrugged. "The frost-spiders are hungry."

With a ripple through his body the drengr stepped back and sat down by the fire.

The screaming was over now, a few whimpers drifting on the wind, all the prisoners were down, wrapped in web, and the frost-spiders began to drag them across the snow, back towards the treeline.

Orka looked to Biórr and caught his gaze.

"A fair world and freedom ," she said to him and spat on the ground.

Biórr looked away.

"We are at war, and they are our enemy," Myrk said with a shrug, looking at him. "They have fought against us, have enslaved us. They have done far worse to us."

"Those children?" Orka said.

"They would come to, when they were grown," Myrk said, brows knitting into a scowl. "Besides, we need to move fast. They would slow us down, and feeding them to the vaesen is easier and faster than foraging." She looked at the drengr who had stood. "At least they are being put to good use, rather than dropping and freezing where they lie. Even their teeth will be eaten by the tennúr."

"You think that is a comfort to us?" Dagrun said.

"I hope not," Myrk smiled.

Orka's wolf-ears heard new sound from the woodland, and she turned to look, saw a line of figures emerge into the vale. She recognised Brák leading his crew of hunters and saw they were carrying something. Her heart lurched in her chest.

Do they have Breca?

Myrk hailed them as they crossed the vale, ice-reamed snow crunching under their feet, and they changed their course, heading towards her. Orka saw there were about a dozen with Brák, a mixture of skraeling and humans. There were no bound captives being led. Two of the skraeling had bodies slung across their shoulders.

The thud of hooves and Rotta came riding down the line on a big bay gelding. He reined in but stayed mounted.

"What news, Brák?" Rotta asked the hunter as he drew near. "Have you caught more runaways?" He nodded at the bodies the skraeling were carrying.

"No," Brák grunted. "Show them," he said to the skraeling, and they dropped the bodies on the ground.

A man and a woman, both dead. The man's throat had been cut, a neat slice made by sharp iron, crusted blood black in the moonlight. The woman's face was latticed with black veins, like a cobweb of ink beneath her skin, the eyes bulging in pain and mouth open, tongue black and swollen. Orka felt her heartbeat rise. She recognised that handiwork.

Spert.

She looked to Rotta and saw that he realised it, too, a hand involuntarily rising to his own face, where Spert's venom had wreaked such pain.

"No sound or sign of who did this, the sneaky nieing troll-humpers," Brák growled. "First I knew of them was Svea's screams."

The hunters have become the hunted.

Orka felt a smile twitch her lips at that, felt a flush of pride that Spert and whoever had slain the other warrior had outwitted these hunters. But she felt a flicker of fear in her belly, too.

Is Breca with them? They should have been far from here by now.

She looked to the mountain slopes, black as night, and knew that her crew were out there somewhere, and a glance at Rotta showed that he knew that, too.