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Chapter Twenty-Seven: Elvar

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ELVAR

Elvar sat on a patch of wind-blasted bone high on Snaka’s skull, staring out over the fjord of Snakavik far below as the sun rose behind her. Tendrils of mist coiled like serpents around the cliffs that edged the fjord, gulls swirling small as motes of dust, and the fjord glistened in the new sun.

Grend lay snoring beside her, wrapped in his cloak.

Elvar stood, breathing out a long sigh, and buckled on her weapons belt, the familiar weight of sword and seax settling around her waist and hips.

“Come on,” she said, nudging Grend with her toe.

“Could have chosen somewhere warmer to sit and think,” he muttered as he climbed to his feet, then looked at her. “I hope it has helped?”

“It has,” she said, striding off.

They made their way over thick ridges of bone, until they came to the skull tunnel. Grend nodded to guards bearing Jarl Störr’s yellow shields as smoke and firelight wrapped around them and they descended through Snaka’s thick skull into the town below.

Elvar walked in silence, chewing over her thoughts, working through all that Hrung had said. Like her father, he said far more with the words he did not speak, but with Hrung Elvar knew that there was an impartial truth wrapped within his words that she had never been able to uncover in her father’s.

Grend walked quietly beside her, something that Elvar always valued in his company. He never pushed or hurried her, always followed, whether he agreed or not.

They turned a corner and the tavern appeared before them, a painted sign creaking over the door, a soft fire-glow leaking from shuttered windows and the open door.

Grend’s hand touched her shoulder.

“Wait,” he breathed, the rasp of leather on wood as his axe slid into his fist.

“What?” Elvar said, frowning. Then she realised.

There were shouts from within the tavern, the clang of iron, a scream.

She reached for her sword hilt and broke into a run, Grend a few steps behind her.

A voice: loud, female, shouting. A flash of searing light exploded through the door and threw the window shutters open. Elvar and Grend stumbled, blinded for a moment. Elvar blinked and rubbed her eyes, her vision returning quickly, dappled with white spots. She ran on.

Figures burst through the open doorway: five, six, seven, one with something draped over their shoulder. All had sharp iron in their fists, some glittered in mail. They were not the Battle-Grim.

Elvar was close. She drew her sword in one fist, her seax in the other.

One saw her, a blond-haired warrior, tall and broad with a thick beard, silver rings about his neck and arms. A black raven’s wing was braided into his hair. He wore a brynja and had a sword in his fist, and he turned to meet her as Elvar ran at them.

Their swords met, sparks grating, the clangour loud in the silent streets, Elvar holding the warrior’s sword in a bind and slashing at his belly with her seax. More sparks, the man grunting, though the iron links of his brynja held. Another warrior turned on Elvar, a woman, axe and seax in her hands. The rest ran on, downhill and away from the tavern.

The woman lunged at Elvar, who stumbled away, sweeping the blond warrior’s sword wide with her seax, chopping down into his calf with her sword, slicing the blade deep through leg-wraps and breeches into flesh as she stepped away.

Grend slammed into the woman lunging at Elvar, the two of them crashing into the tavern wall.

The blond warrior yelled and swayed, and dropped to one knee as his injured leg gave way. He glared at Elvar, his face twisting, muscles twitching, and his lips drew back, revealing jagged teeth, sharp canines. Elvar stabbed at him but he moved, faster than Elvar thought possible, an arm swinging to bat Elvar’s sword away. She stepped forwards, off balance, close to the blond warrior, looking straight into his eyes. A hissed breath as she met his eyes causing her to freeze a moment. They were grey, colours shifting like sun and rain through clouds, the pupil narrowed to a pinprick.

He is Tainted, she thought. He was snarling at her, trying to rise, but his wounded leg was failing him. He staggered and Elvar stabbed with her seax, fear giving her speed and strength, and her blade punched deep into his throat. She pulled away and ripped it out. There was a spurt of arterial blood, black in the half-light, and he toppled to the ground.

Elvar stood over him, chest heaving, and saw Grend push away from the tavern wall, his axe swinging. With a spurt of blood and a gurgled scream the woman sank down the wall, leaving a smeared trail of blood on the whitewashed wattle and daub.

They stood there, staring at each other.

Shouts sounded from inside the tavern and Elvar ran through the door.

She was met with the stink of blood and voided bowels, burned flesh.

Thrud lay across a table, a red gash across his throat, another wound in his back, blank eyes staring. Biórr was slumped unconscious against a wall, blood pulsing from a wound in his shoulder, more blood sheeting his face. Uspa lay on her face on the ground, three or four bodies piled around her. Their hair and clothes were smoking, the flesh on their faces and hands charred and blackened.

Grend checked the room, as Elvar ran to Biórr and crouched beside him.

The loft-ladder had been moved, wedging the loft-hatch closed, blows from above shaking the roof. Elsewhere in the roof an axe head burst through timber with the sound of cracking and a form crashed through in an explosion of timber and straw, landing in a cloud of dust.

Sighvat stood, axe raised, spitting and sputtering, a half-formed battle-cry on his lips. He frowned when he saw Elvar.

“Where are they?” he said.

“Dead or fled,” Elvar told him.

Grend kicked the ladder away, freeing the loft-hatch.

Agnar dropped from the hatch to the ground, his face a snarl, sword in his fist. He took in the scene as Elvar had done, and strode to Uspa as other Battle-Grim dropped down to the ground and turned one of the dead with his boot. Heat still radiated from the corpse.

“More escaped,” Elvar called to Agnar as her fingers found Biórr’s pulse in his neck. He groaned, eyelids flickering.

“They took something,” Elvar frowned, picturing in her thought-cage the figures who had fled. At first she had thought it was one of the chests Agnar’s payment had been held in, but it had been too supple, slumped across a warrior’s shoulder.

“They took the boy,” she said, standing and looking at Uspa. She was breathing, a bruise already purpling along one side of her jaw as Sighvat lifted her.

“Who are they?” Agnar growled.

“Ilska’s Raven-Feeders,” Elvar said. She walked out of the tavern, back to the warrior she had slain. He was blond-haired, with a thick beard now slick with his own blood. His war kit was good: a fine sword and brynja. She lifted the raven feather in his hair with her boot.

“The Raven-Feeders,” she called out. He was the warrior who had spoken to her as she had followed Agnar to see Jarl Störr.

Agnar joined her, frowning. No words were spoken, but Elvar knew what he was thinking.

Why did they take the boy?Tainted children were worth coin, but not like an adult Berserkir or Úlfhéðnar. But whatever the reason, such an insult could not stand.

Agnar yelled a few orders and in a dozen heartbeats Elvar, having snatched up her shield, was following him into the snarl of Snakavik, Grend, Sighvat with the Hundur-thrall and a score of Battle-Grim behind them.

“There it is.” Elvar pointed with her sword at a tavern that came into view as they turned a corner. Agnar barked a command and a handful of the Battle-Grim peeled away, Sighvat leading them, slipping into side streets to check for other entrances and exits to the building.

Without waiting, Agnar shrugged his shield from his back into his fist and kicked the door in, throwing himself into the tavern, ducking and turning, shield raised, sword ready. Elvar followed behind him, covering his back, Grend and other forms pouring through the doorway.

A man cowered over the hearth fire, stirring the embers with an iron poker.

“Where are they?” Agnar snarled at him.

The man froze a moment, mouth open, Elvar seeing his eyes measuring Agnar and the Battle-Grim.

Everything is a choice, her father had said to her once. Truth or lie, fight or flight, love or hate.

“They are gone,” the man said.

Sighvat crashed into the room through a back doorway, timber splintering, the Hundur-thrall at his side. Footsteps drummed on stairs, voices shouting.

“Empty, chief,” Sighvat said.

“Where?” Agnar said to the landlord, striding towards him.

“The docks.” The man pointed with his iron poker.

“If you’re lying to me, I’ll be back to cut your tongue from your mouth and throw it on the fire,” Agnar said, then turned and left the tavern.

Sighvat growled at the thrall, who spent a few moments on all fours sniffing the tavern floor and benches, then straightened and hurried after Agnar.

They hurried through Snakavik’s streets, winding ever downwards, towards the harbour. The streets were filling, now, but all parted to let the stern-faced warriors with naked steel in their fists through. The Hundur-thrall led them on, pausing as they reached the docks and the road split. Grend peeled away to speak to a handful of harbour guards.

“That way,” Grend pointed, even as the thrall loped off in the same direction. They ran now, feet slapping on stone, past the pier that the Wave-Jarl was moored upon, a score of the Battle-Grim aboard it, guarding the ship and what was left of the coin Agnar had been paid by Jarl Störr. The shrieking of gulls was louder, the reek of fish and salt heavy in the air.

Elvar saw a ship pulling out into the harbour, a sleek-lined drakkar, mast upright, sail hoisted on the yardarm but not unfurled. Oars dipped and pulled as the ship moved towards the fangs of Snaka that breached the water. Agnar and the Battle-Grim sprinted, only stopping when the pier met the green-blue water of the fjord, waves lapping against timber. Elvar and Grend halted at Agnar’s shoulder, the Battle-Grim spreading in a line beside them, all staring at the drakkar as it cut a white wake through the harbour. Grey shields with black wings painted upon them lined the drakkar’s top-rail, a figure standing at the stern holding the tiller: a woman. Elvar could see her clearly, shafts of light piercing through the eye sockets and cracks in Snaka’s skull to illuminate her. She was looking back at them, hair dark as a raven’s wings, bound with silver at her nape, a woollen tunic of grey, a sword at her hip, hilt and buckle glinting with gold.

“Ilska,” Agnar murmured beside Elvar.

Ilska the Ruthless. Ilska the Cruel. Elvar knew of her battle-fame, had heard many a tale of her around the hearth fire. Ilska was a woman who had risen fast and far, carving her reputation in blood and steel.

Beside her stood a man, tall and hulking, a wolf pelt draped across his shoulders. He leaned upon a long-axe, the sides of his head shaved like Agnar’s, but where Agnar’s hair was yellow as ripe corn, this man’s was black as the grave. Like Ilska, he was looking back at the Battle-Grim as they lined along the pier.

Agnar thumped his sword hilt into his shield with a rhythmic pounding. Elvar joined him, and in heartbeats all of the Battle-Grim were beating upon their shields: a rowing rhythm, a battle rhythm. A promise.

Elvar saw the flash of white teeth as Ilska grinned. She raised an arm to Agnar, saluting or mocking, Elvar did not know.

“She will come to regret stealing from me,” Agnar said and spat at the lapping waves.

Elvar laid out a wool blanket on a table and laid her battle-gains upon it. A sword and scabbard, belt, a brynja, a pouch with bone dice and a few copper coins. A silver torc and three silver arm rings. Boots, breeches and a bloodstained tunic. She had stripped it all from the blond warrior’s corpse outside their tavern, as was her right.

The sword and brynja will fetch a good price, and the boots, breeches and tunic look like they will fit Grend, she thought.

Deeper inside the tavern Biórr was being tended by Kráka. Sighvat was asking Biórr questions, but the young warrior was just staring and mumbling. On the table next to him Thrud’s corpse had been wrapped in his cloak. They would take his body to the Sea-Wolf and drop it into the sea, once they were out on the ocean currents. The corpses of the Raven-Feeders were thrown naked into the street. Now that the blood-quickening that battle brings had left her, Elvar felt her stomach lurch at the sight of the burned corpses that had been found collapsed around Uspa.

That is power I have never seen from a Seiðr-witch before, she thought, and I have grown up around Silrið and then Kráka.

Uspa was still unconscious, laid upon a table close to Biórr and Kráka.

Agnar was talking to the landlord, counting out coin from a pouch to pay for the damage the Battle-Grim had brought upon the tavern.

“It is not Agnar’s fault,” Elvar said.

“No, but it is deep-cunning,” Grend said as he rolled up the items he had stripped from his kill. A hand-axe and seax, a fine-tooled belt, tunic and boots. “If Agnar leaves Snakavik known for the destruction of his resting place,” Grend continued, “and a reputation for not paying, then the next time he is here the Battle-Grim will most likely be sleeping on the deck of the Wave-Jarl.”

Elvar grunted at that wisdom. She did not mind sleeping on a ship’s deck, but recognised the pleasures of a straw bed and a hearth fire. She was about to tie her newfound treasure in the wool blanket when she paused and lifted one of the silver arm rings. It was thick and heavy, torchlight flickering where the metal twisted and flowed, the terminals carved into the likeness of a snarling wolf or hound.

Elvar held it out to Grend.

He looked at the arm ring, then at her.

“I do not follow you for wealth or prizes,” he said with a frown.

“I know,” Elvar said. “This is a gift, in recognition of your friendship. You would insult me if you refuse it.”

Grend frowned, then reached out hesitantly and took the silver ring from her. He threaded it over his large fist, up his forearm and about his bicep, then squeezed it tight. He looked at Elvar and she saw his eyes were bright. He said nothing, just dipped his head to her.

Uspa groaned, shifting on the table, and Elvar hurried to her. As she did so she saw Agnar’s eyes upon her, his face unreadable.

Kráka helped Uspa to sit up and offered her a cup of watered ale.

“Where is Bjarn?” Uspa croaked, her eyes searching the room. She grabbed Kráka’s wrist. “Tell me, sister,” she whispered.

“He is taken,” Kráka said.

Uspa let out a wail, her hands clawing at her face.

Elvar grabbed Uspa’s wrists and pulled her hands away, leaving blood smeared on Uspa’s cheeks.

“I told you,” Uspa hissed at Elvar. “I told you we needed to leave Snakavik.”

“This was why? You knew?” Elvar asked.

“Uspa spoke to you of this?” Agnar said as he reached them, his brows knotted in a frown. “Thrud died. He was a good warrior, a friend.” He looked from Uspa to Elvar. “I should have been told.”

Elvar blinked, looking at the corpse of Thrud, tied in his cloak.

Could I have averted this, she thought. Saved Thrud’s life?

“I…” she muttered, but bit back the words gathering on her tongue. She had stopped making excuses to her father a long time ago. She would not choose that path again.

“Get him back. Get Bjarn back for me,” Uspa pleaded, talking to Agnar but with her eyes fixed on Elvar.

“We tried,” Agnar said. “Ilska and the Raven-Feeders have him. They have sailed on their drakkar.” He shrugged. “I went after your son because I will not be attacked, robbed, have my warriors murdered. But there is no tracking Ilska now. Even if I wanted to, it would be a long, hard task to find her, and one that would end without coin. I am chief of the Battle-Grim; I am their gold-giver, their ring-giver.” His eyes flickered to Elvar. “Chasing after your son would not feed my crew. If I come across Ilska again, I will settle my grievance with her, but other than that…” he shrugged. “The question in my thought-cage, though, is, why did they take your son? He is worth a few coins in the thrall-market.” Agnar looked out at the naked corpses of Ilska’s warriors who had died in their raid and sniffed. “He was not worth this.”

Uspa looked around the room, finally fixing her eyes upon Agnar.

“They did not want Bjarn,” she said. “They wanted me.”

“Why?” Agnar asked her. “You are useful: a Seiðr-witch is always useful. But to risk a raid on me and my Battle-Grim, to start a blood feud. Why?”

“If I tell you, will you get my son back for me?”

“That would depend on how much coin I can make from what you tell me.”

“Coin? Is that the sum of your soul, Agnar, chief of the Battle-Grim? Coin?”

“Coin feeds bellies and is the weighing scale of a warrior’s reputation,” Agnar said.

Uspa nodded. “More coin than you can imagine, and more fame than you could ever wish for,” she sighed.

“Tell me, then,” Agnar said.

Uspa looked away, her face twitching. Fear deep in her eyes.

Agnar took a step closer to her, his fingertips brushing the hilt of his seax. “My oathman died because of you. I will know why.”

“Threats do not work on me, Agnar Coin-Seeker. I do not fear death, or pain.”

“I could put those words to the test,” Agnar said.

Uspa shrugged. “And waste both our time,” she answered.

Agnar blew out a breath. “But you do fear your son’s death. You fear a life parted from him. So, Bjarn, then. Your secret for your son.”

Uspa chewed her lip, then nodded. She leaned forwards, her lips touching Agnar’s ear, and whispered something. Agnar jumped back, as if stung.

“You lie,” he said.

Uspa just stared at Agnar.

Elvar felt her heart pound and blood surge through her veins, because she had heard the words Uspa had whispered.

I know the way to Oskutreð.

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