Chapter Thirty-Two: Elvar

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

ELVAR

Elvar banked her oar as the square sail of the Wave-Jarl was unfurled, the wool stinking of mutton-tallow and grease. The sail sagged for a moment and Sighvat bellowed orders, Biórr and a handful of others dragging on the rigging, and then the sail billowed and filled with a south-easterly that hurled them slicing through the waves like a fresh-cast spear.

They were sailing across Lake Horndal, wide as a small sea, the water deep, night-black and impenetrable, and land was just a thin smudge on the edge of Elvar’s vision. She twisted on her sea-chest and looked back over her shoulder at the trading town of Starl shrinking behind them. They had stayed there two days, long enough to restock their provisions: fresh barrels of water, mead, stock fish and smoked meats, as well as re-caulking weathered strakes with pine-tar and horsehair, a coat of fresh tallow to protect the sails and scraping the hull of seaweed, algae and slime. The Wave-Jarl leaped across the white-tipped waves like a horse after a long sleep and a good meal. Elvar heard Agnar laughing and saw him standing at the steering oar, feet spread. Rising from her bench she stumbled a step, then found her sea-footing and walked down the deck towards him. A hand gripped her wrist. It was Grend, looking up at her from his sea-chest. A lattice of thin red scars was laced around his hand and wrist, not yet healed, the same as Elvar bore, a reminder of their oath to one another and to Uspa. That had been twelve days ago, and since then they had packed and left the tavern, loaded the Wave-Jarl and rowed almost a hundred leagues.

“Going to see the chief,” Elvar said with a scowl to the question in Grend’s eyes.

Grend nodded and let go of her wrist. If anything, he had become more protective over her since they had sworn their new oath. Elvar didn’t like it.

She threaded her way across the deck, packed with provisions for what could be a long journey on foot, past a stack of wheels and axles and dismantled carts, five of them and eight pack-ponies that Agnar had purchased in Starl. They were tough beasts, tethered and munching on hay, seemingly unconcerned about the fact that they were no longer on dry land.

Agnar smiled at Elvar as she reached him.

“Something I wanted to tell you, chief,” she said.

“Aye, what is it, then?” Agnar said. He gave her a hard look, a warning to take care over what came out of her lips. They had sworn to keep silent about their destination, the few of them who had sworn the oath, not even telling the rest of the Battle-Grim.

“Not until we are on the north shore of Lake Horndal,” Agnar had said. “With the Boneback Mountains behind us and the Battle-Plain all that we can see before us. There will be no going back, then, no chance of desertion or betrayal.”

So, they had kept their silence, Agnar only telling the Battle-Grim that they had a new job and that it would pay well.

Pay better than any other job imaginable, Elvar thought. Finding Oskutreð will change our lives. It may change all of Vigrið.

“That day Bjarn was taken,” she said.

“Aye,” Agnar said, his frown thickening, eyes flickering to see if anyone was close, or pausing in their tasks to flap their ears.

“I fought one of Ilska’s Raven-Feeders as they fled the tavern with the boy,” Elvar continued.

Agnar nodded, his frown fading now that he knew she was not talking about what had happened or been said inside the tavern kitchen.

“I think he was Tainted,” Elvar said. “He… changed. When he saw death looming. His teeth, his eyes.”

“Are you sure?” Agnar said.

Elvar took a moment. “No,” she said, thinking of the blond warrior, his beard and brynja, their combat lasting little more than a dozen heartbeats. And it had been dark, dawn only a hint in the perpetual gloom of Snakavik. “It was dark, and over too quickly. But I have lived around the Tainted, my father and his Berserkir-thralls. I have seen them turn.”

“Aye,” Agnar grunted, “I don’t doubt you have.” He tugged on his beard. “Tainted among Ilska’s Raven-Feeders,” he murmured. “If he was, which you say is not certain, then the question is: Did Ilska the Cruel know?”

Elvar shrugged.

“The Tainted can live among us and go unnoticed,” Agnar said. “Many do. That is the safer path for them. But to be a warrior in a crew like the Raven-Feeders, to live with death’s talons in your shoulder, her breath on your neck, and still manage to control that wildness of the blood…”

“Not so easy,” Elvar said.

“Aye,” Agnar grunted. “And if Ilska knew, then why wasn’t the warrior wearing a thrall-collar? Better to do her bidding, then, and she wouldn’t have to pay him as much. Or she could have sold him?” He looked at Elvar. “I do not know if this is important or not, but it is good to know, and good that you remembered. A fine quality to have, to be able to go back over the details and pick out the thread of a thing.” He patted her arm, saw the red and white scars spiralled around her wrist, then smiled.

“Look about you, Elvar Störrsdottir. Did you ever think that you would be travelling on such a journey, such an adventure?”

“No,” Elvar smiled back, the thought of what they were doing, of where they were going, sparking a constant glow of excitement in the pit of her belly.

Oskutreð, the great tree, centre of the dead god’s realm. To be part of a quest that will live on in songs and saga-tales for ever.

She grinned, wider, and turned to look out over the prow of the Wave-Jarl, over the green-black of the lake, a cold wind whipping white-flecked foam on wave tips. To the east and west the Boneback Mountains reared, green slopes thick with pine and the glitter of waterfalls. Here and there a sheer cliff face showed yellow or grey, the hint of colossal, ancient bones. Starl was built in the shadow of a high-curling rib of Snaka’s that arched high as the clouds, one of the few places where his ancient skeleton could still be seen. The rib cast a long shadow arcing across the wide water. The lake was one of two places where a handful of Snaka’s ribs had not been overlaid with rock and earth. Perhaps there had been a lake here before the death of the great serpent, denying a solid foundation for the upheaval and resettling that Snaka’s death caused. Elvar did not know, but whatever the reason, this was one of only two passes through the Boneback Mountains to the northern side. To the Battle-Plain, where the battle had raged the hardest on that dread day, the Guðfalla, when the gods fell, and where vaesen prowled now in greater numbers. Looking up she saw the silhouettes of osprey in the sky, and further east an eagle. The Wave-Jarl cut through the waves, the speed of it tugging Elvar’s braid out behind her.

This is freedom, to sail with shield-brothers and sisters on a journey for fair battle-fame and dragon-hoarded treasure. In search of fabled Oskutreð. The joy of it bubbled in her veins and she laughed out loud.

Elvar sat with her back to a hawthorn tree with a trencher balanced on her knees. She used a small skinning seax to cut and skewer a fillet of still steaming oat-wrapped cod from the pan. She blew on it and huffed as she put it in her mouth, the flesh and fried oats too hot, but too delicious to wait for.

They had made landfall soon after midday of their second day on the lake and had searched for a suitable place to anchor and moor the Wave-Jarl. They were in a secluded inlet now, flanked with alder, birch and hawthorn. The wagons had been brought ashore and constructed with mallets and dowel-pins, the ponies hobbled close by. Elvar could hear the boat creaking on the water, and through the trees she glimpsed starlight reflecting silver around the ship and on the newly tarred hull. Lots had been drawn for who would stay to guard the ship, Elvar not feeling her usual fear at that possibility, because she knew that all who had sworn the oath to Uspa had no choice but to continue on the journey to Oskutreð.

All the Battle-Grim were gathered together, apart from Grend and Sighvat, who were first to take watch. They were not too far away, though, lurking on the outer edge of the copse of trees that the company had made camp within. Agnar stood beside a firepit scratched into the ground, flames flaring and crackling, branches swaying above him. A pot hung over the fire, a barley stew simmering in it, and a flat iron pan lay over hot embers, with more of the cod Elvar was eating frying in oats and butter.

A silence had settled over the gathering, because Agnar had just told them why they had ventured north, through the Boneback Mountains and into the heart of the Battle-Plain.

“Oskutreð?” Huld said. She was the next youngest in the warband, after Elvar, her hair black as night. She reached up and tugged on the bear-claw that hung from a leather cord about her neck. Elvar saw her own emotions flickering across Huld’s face: disbelief, followed by fear and excitement.

“Aye,” Agnar said.

“How?” another voice asked. It was lean, grey-haired Sólín, who had been picking her teeth with a seax. Her arm hung at her side now.

“There is much to the tale,” Agnar said. “Uspa stole a book of magic, a Galdrabok, from Ilska the Cruel.”

“The Graskinna,” Uspa said, her voice a hiss from where she sat at the edge of the shadows. Kráka and the Hundur-thrall were sitting with her.

“Uspa was destroying it when we found her, throwing it into the molten fires of Iskalt Island. But not before she had read it and learned its secrets,” Agnar smiled.

“So Ilska’s attack was not for the boy. It was for her,” Huld said, looking at Uspa.

“Aye,” Agnar said, “that is what we think. They took the boy in their rush to flee. Perhaps to trade or bargain with us, with Uspa.”

“Ilska could be following us, then,” Elvar said, voicing a possibility that had been lurking in her thought-cage.

Biórr came and sat beside her, a bowl of barley stew and black bread in his hand.

“She could,” Agnar agreed. “Though there has been no sign of her.” He shrugged. “I hope that she does. It will make fulfilling my oath easier.” He pulled back the sleeve of his tunic to show the spiralling scars around his hand, wrist and forearm. In the flame-glow they looked like rings of fire. “I swore the blóð svarið, the blood oath, to Uspa the Seiðr-witch. She will guide us to Oskutreð, and I will get her son back or die in the trying.” He looked around. “Others swore it, too. Sighvat. Elvar. Grend. Kráka.”

A jerk of Biórr’s head as he looked at her.

“And even though you do not bear these marks,” Agnar continued, raising his scarred fist, “if you follow me to Oskutreð, then you are bound by it too.” He blew out a long breath. “Oskutreð, the great Ash Tree, where the gods fought and fell. Ulfrir, Orna, Berser, Rotta, all of them. Their remains, their riches, their war gear. Their captains…” His words spun a saga-tale of gold and wealth, of fame and fortune unimaginable. Elvar could see the fire of it sparking to life in the eyes of everyone around her.

“Will you follow me?” Agnar said, his voice little more than a whisper.

“We will follow you, Agnar Fire-Fist,” Biórr said.

Voices rang out, a chorus of heya’s, oaths and cheers.

“Then let us seal it with some mead,” Agnar cried, laughing and rolling a barrel into view.

The cheers were louder as the barrel was opened and horns were dipped. Agnar gave full drinking horns to all of his Battle-Grim, laughing and smiling as he did, people raising their horns and drinking, to Agnar, to Oskutreð, to the Battle-Grim. Elvar lifted her horn and took a deep draught of mead, feeling the honey-sweet trickle down her throat and send a warm glow through her belly. Agnar smiled at her and walked on.

Biórr drank beside her, quietly sipping.

“So, we are to Oskutreð, then,” he said, nodding to himself. “That is quite a thing.”

“Heya, so it is,” Elvar agreed, holding her mead horn up and clinking his, then drinking some more.

“A toast,” Biórr said, smiling at her. “To finding Oskutreð and changing the world.”

Elvar echoed him and they drank together.

“I am glad you, we, are sworn to be finding Bjarn,” Biórr said.

“There is a kindness in you,” Elvar said, liking how Biórr often mentioned Bjarn.

Biórr shrugged, looking away. “It is because I need a rematch of tafl board with him. He beat me the last time, and I need my revenge.”

Elvar smiled. “I have been thinking about that day, when Bjarn was taken,” she said. “Why did Ilska run? She fled Snakavik, fled from us. If she wanted to trade the boy, why did she do that?”

“Who knows the mind of Ilska the Cruel?” Biórr said. “I doubt that she was running because she was scared of us. But maybe she wanted to avoid a scrap. Let things calm down before she tried to trade with us. It is not so easy to bargain and trade with people when you have a blood feud with them.”

“Aye,” Elvar nodded. “And they had killed Thrud.”

A twist of Biórr’s lips and he looked away.

“He was your friend,” Elvar said.

“His death, it was my fault,” Biórr said heaving a sigh.

“It was an ambush and a fight,” Elvar said. “Lucky that you and Uspa came out of it breathing.” She thought about Agnar’s words to her, as they were crossing the lake. “We all live with death’s talons in our shoulder, her breath on our neck,” she said. “Thrud knew that as well as we do.”

“That is a truth,” Biórr said, looking into the hearth fire. They were silent for a while, sipping at their mead.

“It cannot have been easy leaving Snakavik behind,” Biórr eventually said, startling Elvar. “Leaving your kin behind,” he added at the twist of her eyebrow.

“It was not so hard,” Elvar said. “My father is not an easy man to like, and my brother Thorun is an arseling.”

“You have another brother, though,” Biórr said.

“Aye, Broðir.” She smiled. “I do like him. But, he is… content, with his lot in Snakavik.”

“And you are not?”

“No,” Elvar said. “My father would have sold me off as a brood bitch to Queen Helka’s spawn. I would not have been content with that.”

“Some would think that a fine life,” Biórr said, “not wanting for anything: warmth, food, silver in plenty. Power.”

“Not me,” Elvar snarled as she sipped her mead. “I want to earn my own battle-fame and silver, not be given it, or ride on the reputation of those before me.” She thought of her father, and the ever-fading memories of her mother, just fractured images now, of her smile, her laugh, her touch. She felt eyes upon her and shivered, looked at Biórr.

He was staring at her, his eyes glittering in the firelight.

“What?” Elvar said.

“You are a rare thing,” Biórr smiled. He reached out, his fingertips brushing the marks on the back of Elvar’s hand, sending a shiver through her. Gently he gripped her hand and held it up to the firelight, turning it so that the lattice of scars glowed like red rivers from Eldrafell, the fire mountain. “I follow Agnar Battle-Grim, but I will also follow you, Elvar Troll-Slayer, Elvar Fire-Fist,” he said quietly. Then he leaned forwards and touched his lips to hers. It was just a caress, but it sent a tremor through Elvar, as if ice had trickled down her spine. She pulled away, startled, and he smiled at her.

The sound of footsteps approached, twigs cracking in the darkness behind them, and then Grend was looming above Elvar, looking down at them with a deep scowl on his face.

“Your watch,” he said, his eyes shifting from Elvar to Biórr and then back to Elvar.

Elvar stood hurriedly, nodded and walked off into the darkness.