Chapter Nineteen: Orka

CHAPTER NINETEEN

ORKA

Orka walked through the gates of her steading. The flames had burned out, much of the hall collapsed, some pillars and timbers still standing, black and twisted like diseased bones. Smoke hung in the air, churning sluggishly in a breeze. She walked to Thorkel’s body, lying with his axe in his fist, his eyes staring and sightless. A fresh wave of grief wracked her, a spasm in her belly, and she turned and bent over, vomiting on to the ground.

“Mistress,” a voice squeaked, and Orka saw a movement by the stream: Vesli the tennúr kneeling beside the limp form of Spert upon his rock. She spat, cuffing bile from her chin, and strode over to them, feeling the wounds in her back, shoulder and waist pulling. Small bodies littered the ground around the stream, a dozen tennúr lying twisted in death. There was one man, too, dressed like the ones Orka had fought by the river, in wool and leather. Woodsman’s clothing. He lay upon the ground, a spear by his side, one foot in the stream, mouth open in a rictus scream. Half of his face was black and blistered, veins dark and protruding, spiralling out like a cobweb. At the swelling’s centre there was a small, round wound, like a pinprick.

Spert’s sting, Orka realised. She had seen what it did to intruders before.

“Spert is alive,” Vesli said. She had cleaned the wound on her head and washed the blood away to reveal a ragged gash that stretched from her forehead up and along the crown of her skull. It had not been made with a sharp blade; it looked more like she had been chewed by razored teeth.

Orka looked at Spert. The chitinous segments of his long body were rising and falling with shallow breaths, the wound in his side covered with black congealing ichor. Orka frowned. The wound had been stitched, some kind of pale thread weaving through the segments around the gash, pulling them tighter. And a strange substance coated the wound, thick and opaque, like boiled glue. Vesli had soaked water into a linen bandage for Spert and was dripping it slowly into his mouth.

“You have stitched his wound?” Orka said.

Vesli nodded, looked at Orka and saw the bloodstains on her tunic.

“Vesli help you, too. Vesli good at fixing wounds.”

I am good at giving them, Orka thought.

Spert’s bulbous eyes fluttered open at the sound of Orka’s voice.

“Mistress,” he wheezed.

Vesli shifted, wings spreading, and she fluttered around to Orka’s back and shoulder, hovering, sharp fingers surprisingly gentle as she pulled back the tunic to inspect Orka’s wound. She used the linen bandage in her hand to clean the deep laceration, then there was a spitting sound and Vesli was rubbing something into the wound. Whatever it was, in a few heartbeats the throbbing pain across Orka’s back and shoulder began to fade.

Orka kneeled beside the vaesen, resting a hand on his head. “I am here,” she said.

“Spert sorry. Spert tried,” the creature croaked. “Spert kill many vaesen, but nasty Maður stab Spert with a spear.” He coughed, a ripple through his body, black ichor leaking from his mouth.

Orka glanced at the man’s corpse by the stream.

You made him pay for that.

Vesli fluttered to the ground, sharp fingers tugging at Orka’s tunic so that the vaesen could look at the cut along Orka’s waist. She clicked her tongue, soaked and squeezed out the linen bandage in the stream and set about cleaning that wound, too.

“You did well, Spert,” Orka said, letting Vesli work. “Rest, now. Recover.”

“Breca?” Spert said, looking up at Orka. Vesli paused in her tending of Orka’s wound.

Orka drew in a deep breath, then found that she couldn’t say the words.

He is gone.

“What happened here?” she asked, instead.

Spert’s mouth moved, sputtered a cough.

Vesli dropped her head. “Maður and vaesen came over wall. Spert fought them, Thorkel barred the gates of the hall.” She looked at the burned-out skeleton and put a hand with her spiked fingers to her throat. “Fire and smoke, very bad, we all choke. Thorkel opened gates, fought.” She made a clicking sound in her throat. “Thorkel fierce. Thorkel change, become…” She looked up at Orka, who just nodded. “Warriors and vaesen break in, tennúr too.” She paused, her face twisting in a snarl, and she spat on the ground. “Oathless tennúr, and others.”

“What others?” Orka grunted.

“Skraeling, and… something else. Human, but not,” she said. “Like Thorkel, but… not,” Vesli shrugged.

“One of the Tainted?” Orka prompted. “Human, but animal, as well.”

“Yes, yes,” Vesli said. “Man, with two long, sharp claws. He fought Thorkel. Nasty man, fierce.”

Claws? The seaxes in Thorkel’s body?

“Did you see his eyes?” Orka asked.

Vesli nodded. “They glowed red, like embers in the fire.”

A low growl from Orka.

“And then?” she said, knowing what must be coming, not wanting to hear it, but unable not to.

“Tennúr flew in, try to take Breca,” Vesli said with another savage twist of her lips. “Vesli fight them.” She put a hand to the wound on her head and shrugged, her wings rippling. “Next thing Vesli know, Orka carrying her out of hall. Vesli grateful.”

Orka nodded.

Vesli took a step away from Orka, to look at the wounds on Orka’s waist and shoulder.

“Vesli has helped?” she asked, a thin smile spreading across her face, showing the hint of tiny, sharp teeth.

Orka stood and stretched, carefully rolled her shoulder and twisted to the side. Both of her wounds felt better. She could still feel them, but the pain was less. She brushed her fingertips across the gash in her waist and felt something sticky.

“Orka heal quicker, now,” Vesli said.

“How did you do that?” Orka said.

Vesli coughed and spat up a glob of glutinous spit, then began to knead it in her fingers. It congealed and became stringy, like tendon.

Orka decided she didn’t want to know.

“You and Spert are free of your oaths,” Orka said, looking from Vesli to Spert, at their wounds. “You have both earned it.”

“Vesli help you.”

“Help me by looking after Spert.” She looked up at the sky, tendrils of black smoke still in the air. “Take him away from the steading. People from the village may come. If they find you and Spert, they will kill you both.” She walked back to Thorkel and stood over him, looking down at his pale, scarred face.

I would stay here with you and never leave you, my husband, if I could.

She blew out a long, ragged sigh, knowing what she must do. She walked to the barn and found a spade, then returned to the courtyard, counted paces across the ground and stopped near the western tip of the hall. Then she started digging. It was not long before the blade hit something solid with a dull thud. She carried on digging, uncovering a wooden chest. Once it was clear of earth, she reached in and grabbed a rope handle, dragged the chest free of soil, undid the bolt and opened the lid.

A flood of memories: of Thorkel, of battle, death, the screams of the dying. Old friends, old enemies. Some that had been both. She shook her head; a shudder rippled through her body. For so long she had fought these memories, turned away from them, tried to scatter them, or bury them like she had buried the chest.

But not this time.

Now she embraced them, let them grow and swirl behind her eyes, until all she could see was battle and blood.

Because that is what I am. It is my past, and my future, until Breca is safe at my side.

She reached in and took out a seax in a scabbard of polished leather, knotwork tooled into it, a hilt of walrus ivory, fittings and rings of silver. Reaching back in she pulled out a fist full of arm rings, silver and gold, twisted and wound together. Retrieving the spade, she walked back to Thorkel, setting the seax and arm rings beside him. First, she dug a shallow grave, then she paused and crouched by his side, just wanting to be close to him. When she was ready, she gripped the hilts of the two seaxes embedded in his body, and with a grunt and snarl pulled them free. She looked at them a long moment, then cast them aside on the ground, and dragged Thorkel’s body into the grave.

With a whirr of wings Vesli joined her, trying to help by pulling on Thorkel’s tunic. She was remarkably strong for her size.

Thorkel slid into the grave, his fist still wrapped around the haft of his long-axe. Orka arranged it on his chest, then placed the scabbarded seax beside him. She slipped the rings of gold over his wrists and up his arms. She stood and continued her work, gathering timber from about the yard, stones as well, and she built a barrow about him. Finally, there was only one space open to the sky, only Thorkel’s face still visible. Orka paused and went back to the chest, reached in with both hands and pulled out a rolled sheepskin, laid it out on the ground and unrolled it, revealing a brynja of riveted mail. It had been inside a chest, buried in the ground for over ten years, but it glistened as if new, the grease and absence of air within the chest keeping it free of rust. Orka unbuckled her weapons belt that held her seax, axe and a pouch of tinder and kindling, and laid it on the ground. Then she lifted the brynja and threaded her arms into it, raising it high, her hands searching for the sleeves, and hoisted it over her head, the iron shirt slipping around her like the coils of a serpent. Orka shifted and wriggled and the coat slipped over her head and down her torso, hanging just above her knees. She twisted and shrugged, rolling her shoulders to settle it into place, adjusting to the weight, feeling it mostly upon her shoulders. It pulled at her wound. Crouching she reached back into the chest and pulled out a pouch that chinked with coin, then she picked up her weapons belt and buckled it tight, looped it, the belt helping to take some of the brynja weight from her shoulders.

A long moment, feeling the iron settle about her, as if it had never been gone. She turned and walked to the barn, found a hemp sack and filled it with provisions: a jar of oats, dried strips of salted pork and smoked trout wrapped in linen, a sealskin bag of whey and a round of hard cheese. A loaf of black bread. An iron pot and pan, a wood and leather water bottle. She filled that at the stream and packed everything into the sack, slung it over her shoulder and dropped it beside Thorkel’s barrow.

The sun was dipping towards the sea, sending Orka’s shadow stretching across the steading and she knew she had to go. But instead she stood and looked down upon Thorkel. With a sigh she stooped and picked up the seaxes that had taken his life. They were as long as her forearm, thick at the guard, single-edged and wide-bladed, with a sudden taper towards the blade’s tips. The hilts were carved from ash, knotwork spiralling around them, a brass cap where a sword’s pommel would be, a pin threaded with leather. Orka stared at them and slipped one into her belt. A coldness seeped through her blood like frost-touched iron, settling deep into her marrow. The other seax she held out and drew its blade across her forearm, a line of blood welling. She held her arm over the open barrow and watched as blood ran down her arm into her palm, and dripped from her fingertips on to Thorkel’s face.

“I am blood. I am death, I am vengeance,” she said, her voice flat, empty. Then she wiped the seax clean and slipped it into her belt, finally placing timber and stone on to the barrow, sealing Thorkel inside. She stooped, lifted her sack and picked up her spear, then strode out through the gateway.

With a hiss of wings Vesli flew around her, hovered over her.

“Vesli come with you, help mistress get Breca back,” the tennúr said.

“No,” Orka said. “Death is my only companion. Stay and help Spert.”

Vesli looked at the two seaxes that had slain Thorkel, thrust inside Orka’s belt.

“What are you going to do with them, mistress?” the tennúr asked.

Orka looked out, over the sloping hills and down to Fellur village, a smear far below.

“I’m going to find the owner of these blades, and give them back to him,” Orka snarled.