Chapter Seventeen: Orka

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ORKA

Orka ran, her chest heaving, lungs burning. She could smell smoke on the air. The vale of the ash tree was far behind her, she had climbed the ridge at a run, crossed it and was plummeting down the far slope through woodland, towards her steading.

The flicker of flames through branches. Sweat stung her eyes, her limbs heavy, branches whipping her skin, but she ran on. The sounds of shouting. A cloud of black smoke rolled through the woodland.

A rhythmic thud, a tremor in the ground and ripple in branches, as if Berser the dead god had awoken and was pounding on a war drum.

She ran on, heard voices mingled with the crackle of flame.

A crash, a battle-cry, a scream, high and terrified.

Breca.

Fear and rage bubbled inside her, merging, feeding her. The clash of iron and steel, more screams.

Vines snagged her feet, sending her stumbling, but she steadied herself with her spear and ran on, swerving around trees, carving a path through ferns and sedge. Her heart pounded in her chest, blood beating loud in her skull. The ground began to level, and she knew she was close to her home. Abruptly she realised that the noises had stopped. She heard only the crackle of flame, thick banks of cloud swirling among the trees.

And then she was bursting into the clearing around her steading.

The gates were open, one hanging on a single hinge. Beyond the gates and stockade the walls and roof of her hall were on fire, flames blazing and reaching into the sky. Gouts of black smoke swirled through the courtyard, obscuring much.

Orka pulled the leather cover from her spear blade, dropping it as she ran for the gates. Passing through them she saw that the timber post where the galdr-runes that protected the steading were carved had been burned and obliterated, which only a Galdurman or Seiðr-witch could have done.

The courtyard was churned with boot prints. Chickens and goats lay dead, scattered around, the barn and stable doors open, Snort the pony was nowhere to be seen. A shape draped on the rock by the stream: Spert, unnaturally still, black ichor oozing from a hole in his segmented body. Smaller bodies lay around him, a dozen tennúr vaesen. All appeared dead.

Orka’s eyes swept the steading, piecing together what had happened. The doors to her hall were smashed and splintered, bodies lying across the entrance.

The steading was attacked and Thorkel retreated to the hall, barred the gates. They set fire to the hall and smashed the doors in. Thorkel held them there, where it is narrowest, rather than let them in.

She bounded up the steps, glancing at the corpses as she stepped over them. A man and woman dressed in woodland leathers and fur. Both bore savage red wounds, deep as bone. Inside the hall rush-reeds were burning in patches on the floor, fiery lumps dropping from the burning roof and exploding on the ground into eruptions of sparks and flame.

Two more dead in the hall; a trail of the dead leading towards a mound of figures piled on the ground, back by the hearth fire.

She ran through the hall, swerving around patches of flame, through thick smoke until she was standing over the bodies.

Five or six corpses, men and women intertangled, limbs splayed, great wounds gaping. One man with a long-axe still embedded in his head, skull split open from crown to chin. Others looked like they had been torn apart, ripped with tooth and claw.

Thorkel lay at their centre.

The hilts of two seaxes protruded from his torso, one high in his chest, one in his belly. He was covered in blood, from his own wounds as well as those lying dead around him. His chest was still moving, blood speckling his lips with shallow, ragged breaths.

“Breca?” she said to him, but he did not respond.

“BRECA!” Orka bellowed, turning in a circle, frantically scanning the room, but she only heard the crackle of flame, the creak of the hall’s timbers. She grabbed bodies, pulled them away from Thorkel, searching for her son. She saw a smaller form beneath a woman, dragged her free and saw Vesli, the tennúr. The vaesen lay still, wings loose, face and head slick with blood.

Thorkel’s eyes flickered open and he saw her.

“They took Breca,” he grunted, a line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Orka stooped and slid her arms under his shoulders, hands gripping him, and she pulled, dragging him from the hall. He tried to speak, but his voice was a wheeze that she could not hear over the flames.

Suddenly there was a ripping, tearing sound and a portion of the roof gave way, collapsing inwards, a crash and an explosion of flames, a glimpse of blue sky above. The hall creaked, timbers protesting, flames crackling, smoke billowing, a waterfall of sparks cascading around Orka.

She dragged Thorkel out of the hall, down the steps and lay him on the ground. He was ashen, the blood on his lips bright and stark against alabaster skin. Orka kneeled beside him, held his head, stroked sweat-stuck hair from his face, fear a fist clenching around her heart.

Thorkel’s eyes fixed on hers.

“They took him,” Thorkel breathed again, fresh blood on his lips. “I could not stop them.” A pause, a spasm of pain twisted his lips as he took ragged breaths. “I tried.”

“I will get him back,” Orka said, fury and fear swirling in her blood. She wanted to run and chase after her son, to find him and hold him, to rip and kill and tear those who had taken him, to stamp on their skulls and claw the throats from those who had done this to her Thorkel. But she could not leave his side.

Thorkel’s lips moved, breath hissing, and Orka leaned closer.

“Dragon-born,” he grunted through clenched teeth, red-flecked spittle on his lips and chin as his body stiffened with a convulsion of pain.

“Breathe. Keep breathing,” Orka said: a command, a plea, to Thorkel’s failing body.

“I am… sorry,” Thorkel said, his voice little more than a sigh. His fingers twitched, reaching for her. And then he was gone.

“No,” Orka said, a whisper as she gripped his hand, shook her head. Tears blurred her vision, her jaw and throat tight, constricted. Hard to breathe. “No, no, no, no, NO!” she screamed, lifting her head and howling at the smoke-smeared sky.

Orka lay Thorkel’s head on the ground, stroked his lips with her fingertips and then wiped his blood across her face, from forehead to chin in ragged stripes. Slowly she stood, a cold wind searing through her heart. She checked her weapons belt, palms brushing the hilt of her seax and small axe, then looked about for her spear before remembering she had dropped it in the hall to carry Thorkel. With fast, deliberate steps she strode back into the hall, held her breath and plunged through thick smoke, back to the pile of bodies around the hearth fire. She grasped her spear and heard a sound, a hiss, and saw that the tennúr Vesli was moving. Orka swept the tennúr up. The vaesen’s eyes were open, though unfocused.

One more thing.

She strode to Thorkel’s long-axe, the blade buried in a man’s skull, put a boot on the corpse and ripped the axe free, then she ran from the hall, timber pillars cracking, splintering, caving in.

There was an explosion of smoke and flame as Orka leaped from the doorway, down the steps, the hall collapsing behind her. She sucked in a deep lungful of air as a cloud of smoke and ash engulfed her, then waited for it to settle. Once she could breathe air again, she lay Vesli upon the ground beside Thorkel. The vaesen was breathing, limbs twitching. Orka placed the haft of the long-axe in Thorkel’s hand, folding his fingers around it. Then she was striding from the courtyard, out through the stockade’s gateway and searching for tracks.

They were not hard to find, many boot prints flattening the grass, and one set of horse’s hooves, heading east into wooded hills. There was blood, too. Bright droplets of scarlet sprinkled across the ground. She looked back through the gates of the steading, at Thorkel’s body, and then she was moving, breaking into a loping run through the clearing and into the trees, following the blood and tracks of those who had murdered her husband and stolen her son.

They had made no attempt at stealth, a wide path trampled through the undergrowth. Orka followed them eastwards, the trail slowly curving north, downhill, Orka guessing where they were headed before she heard the sound of the river.

The same as Asgrim’s killers. Thorkel followed their tracks to a river. He said three boats. A crew anywhere between twelve and thirty. Less the ten that Thorkel has sent along the soul road.

She increased her speed, the path clear, the thought of Breca setting a fire in her belly. Thorkel’s face hovered in her thought-cage: the blood on his lips, his words a whisper inside her skull. Grief swelled in her chest, melding with a forge-fire rage. Fear, anger, grief all spiralled and surged through her, merging into something new.

The sound of running water, and then, piercing through it, the scream of a horse.

Orka slowed, glanced up, saw it wasn’t long past midday. The trees were thinning. She glimpsed a fast-flowing river ahead, the diamond-glitter of icy meltwater from the mountains. Figures: two, three, maybe more. She stepped from the path into the undergrowth, crept in a half-circle through the woodland, until she was crouched behind a tree, fern and tall sage all about.

She peered around the tree.

A boat was pulled up on the bank. Snort the pony lay dead, blood soaking the ground from a wound in his neck, three men and a woman setting about butchering the animal with hand-axes and seaxes. They were all lean and hard-looking, wearing wool and fur and leather. Spears lay on the riverbank, and they all held sharp iron in their fists. A pile of offal steamed in the cool air. The river frothed and foamed, further on splitting into two channels as it forked around a slab of granite.

A deep, shuddering breath to still the tremors in her body, a whispered vow and then Orka stepped from behind the tree, hefted her spear and threw it. She was moving before it hit its mark, drawing her seax from its scabbard hanging across her stomach, slipping her axe from the hoop in her belt. There was a scream and gurgle as her spear pierced a man, tall and broad, wearing a green woollen tunic with a brown hood. The spear took him in the back, bursting out of his chest with a spray of blood as he crashed face down on to the dead horse.

The other three stopped, frozen for a heartbeat, one with her hand-axe raised in mid-stroke, chopping at the shoulder joints of Snort’s hind legs. They looked from their companion to Orka, who was speeding towards them, snarling, her blades glinting in the spring sun.

The two men spread wide, one old and grey, one too young to grow more than a few wisps on his chin. The woman in front of Orka set her feet and dropped into a crouch, axe raised. Orka veered left, her speed and change of direction taking the older man by surprise. Her hand-axe parried the rushed thrust of his seax as he stabbed at her; a twist and her axe blade bit into his wrist; a yelp and she crashed into him, her seax plunging deep into his belly. They staggered back together, close as lovers, Orka ripping her seax up, slicing and sawing flesh until her blade bit into his lower ribs. She shoved him and the man fell away screaming, intestines spilling about his ankles, and Orka stumbled on, towards the river, turning, slipping and skidding and then falling to her knees.

With a hiss of air, the woman chopped her axe where Orka’s head had just been. Orka hacked and sliced, axe and seax connecting with ankle and thigh and the woman screamed, wobbled, dropped to one knee, taking a backswing with her axe as she fell, slicing along Orka’s back and shoulder. A spurt of blood; a line of heat, of fire and pain. Orka growled at the woman, launched herself into her and the two of them crashed back on to the riverbank, rolling, spitting, snarling. Orka glimpsed boots striding close, the young warrior rushing after them, looming, hesitating as he searched for an opening. Orka’s axe went spinning and she grabbed the woman’s wrist, headbutted her, the crunch of broken cartilage. A gush of blood over the woman’s mouth and jaw as her eyes rolled back into her head, limbs flopping.

A searing pain ran across Orka’s waist and she yelled, thrust the stunned woman away, rolled on the bank, the young man following, slashing wildly at her with his seax. Orka swung her blade, sparks flaring as the seaxes clashed and she kicked out, took the lad in the ankles, sending him crashing down beside her. She rolled and stabbed her seax into his thigh, deep; heard him scream; felt the blade grind on bone; pushed herself away as he swung at her.

Orka climbed unsteadily to her feet and spat blood, pain throbbing across her back and shoulder, her waist. She ignored it all, walked a few paces and bent and picked up her hand-axe.

The lad tried to climb to his feet, screamed and collapsed. He wrapped a fist around the hilt of Orka’s seax, embedded in his leg.

The woman groaned, moving groggily.

Orka stumbled over to the waking woman and looked down at her.

“You killed my husband and took my son,” Orka snarled, lifting her axe.

“Mercy,” the woman blurted, raising a hand.

Orka chopped down, severed fingers spinning away, the axe blade crunching into the woman’s face. A strangled scream cut short. Feet drummed on the grass.

Thorkel’s blood-covered face hovered in Orka’s mind, Breca’s voice ringing out. At the Froa-tree, it had been his screams she had heard at the steading. She ripped her axe free, her mouth twisting, tears clouding her vision, and she chopped down again, and again, and again, arm rising and falling, the crunch of bone turning to a wet, pulped sound. Orka screamed, a feral, tortured noise of rage and grief, and all the while she chopped her axe into what remained of the woman on the ground. Blood and bone flew, spraying Orka, drenching her red.

A whimper came from behind her and she slowed, stopped, breathing hard. Turned.

She looked to the lad.

He was on the ground, one hand clenched around Orka’s seax that was buried deep in his leg, his other holding his own blade, pointing it at Orka. He was staring at her with wide eyes, transfixed, trembling, his face pale as sour milk, twisted in pain and fear and revulsion. Tears cut lines through grime on his cheeks.

Orka threaded her axe haft into the loop on her belt and walked towards the corpse of the man draped over her slaughtered pony. She grabbed her spear shaft, put a boot on the dead man it was buried in, and heaved it free, then walked towards the boy.

“Back, stay back, or I’ll gut you,” he said desperately, face twitching, seax wavering.

“You couldn’t gut a dead fish,” Orka snarled, striding closer. Her spear darted out, around his clumsy parry and stabbed into his forearm. He shrieked, dropping his seax. Orka levelled the spear at him.

“Please,” he squawked as he scrambled away, whimpering with pain as the seax in his leg shifted, realising he could go no further when he felt the river lapping at his back.

There was one boat pulled up on the riverbank, eight oar-stations in it. The ground along the riverbank was scored deeply with ruts from two other boats. Spatters of blood led up to one of the spaces a boat had occupied.

Injured among the survivors. Breca?

Orka looked north, downhill, saw the water foam white around a wedge of dark granite, the river splitting, forking into two channels. Two paths the niðings who had stolen her son could have taken. She looked back to the lad on the ground before her.

“Where is my son?” Orka asked him, spear pointed at his chest.

He looked at her, blood-drenched and grim, then at the spear. With a twist of his body he threw himself backwards, into the river. Orka lunged forwards, grabbed an ankle and hauled him back out. She held her spear high, spun it into a reverse grip and stabbed down, into his shoulder, leaving the blade embedded in flesh and muscle.

He screamed, tears running down his cheeks, snot hanging from his nose.

“I am going to kill you,” she said. “Your days are done.” He screamed and begged as she stood over him, holding the spear in his flesh. “Tell me what I want to know, and it will be quick,” she snarled at him. “Or you can have more pain.” She paused and stared into his weeping face until his snivelling faded to a whimper and she was sure she had his attention. “Where is my son?”

“On the river. They took him,” the lad squeaked.

Orka pushed down on the spear and the lad shrieked. The spear blade sliced deeper, through his shoulder and out into earth, pinning him to the ground.

“I know that, you little weasel-shite,” Orka grunted. “Where are they taking him? What route did they take on the river where it forks?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he mumbled, “I came with my uncle.” He glanced at the dead man flopped over the horse’s carcass.

“You made the wrong choice,” Orka said.

The lad nodded, whimpering. “He said I’d get paid in gold for climbing over a wall and opening a gate. I’ve got sharp eyes, long arms and quiet feet.” His breath came in ragged spurts.

“You opened the gate to my steading,” Orka said, voice cold. A flash of Thorkel’s face, blood on his lips, hovered behind her eyes. She twisted her spear in the lad’s arm.

He screamed, writhed, screamed again.

“Who took my son? Who is the chief, the gold-giver?”

“I… can’t tell you,” the boy wheezed, strings of spittle drooling from his mouth.

Orka’s knuckles whitened on the spear.

“Please, no more,” the lad sobbed.

“His name,” Orka said.

“I… fear him,” the lad begged, weeping. There was a sharp tang of ammonia as his bladder failed him, a dark stain spreading through his breeches.

“Fear me,” Orka snarled. She twisted the spear again, leaned and grabbed the hilt of her seax still buried in his leg, dragging it slowly against the bone of his thigh.

She waited for his screams to fade. It took a while.

“His name,” Orka said.

The lad looked up at her, eyes almost mad with pain.

“Drekr,” he breathed.

Orka tugged her spear free and, as the lad opened his mouth to scream, she plunged it into his chest, put her weight into it, felt the blade pass between ribs and pierce his heart.

A gout of dark blood bubbled from the boy’s mouth, choking his scream, and then the life was fading from his eyes.

Orka tugged the blade free and wiped it clean on the lad’s tunic. She stared at the river, at the granite rock where the river foamed white, splitting and forking into two paths. Beyond the rock face the twin rivers twisted and disappeared as the land dipped, dropping towards the fjord and Fellur village.

“Drekr,” Orka whispered to the cold blue sky.