Chapter Thirty-Six: Varg

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

VARG

Varg paused and wiped sweat from his brow. The terrain around them had shifted over the last few days of travel, from gentle hills and meadows to sharp slopes and twisting valleys. He was climbing a steep, rock-littered ravine, the Bloodsworn stretched out in a long line behind him. Above him Glornir and Vol climbed together, and ahead of them he could just make out the forms of Torvik, Edel and the other scouts reaching the lip of this dried-out river and disappearing into a fringe of pinewoods. Edel’s two wolfhounds stood at the ravine’s rim, one of them looking down at Edel, barking and wagging its tail. To Varg it looked like level ground lay beyond the ravine’s lip.

At least, that is what he hoped.

“Get moving, Varg No-Sense,” Røkia called up to him. “Or are you waiting for an eagle to swoop down and carry you the rest of the way?”

“My sore feet are wishing exactly that,” Varg muttered, blisters throbbing on the soles of his feet. He rolled his shoulders and shrugged his shield upon his back, shifting the leather strap that bit into him, and walked on, using his spear like a walking staff. Sweat steamed from his body, the temperature palpably dropping as they climbed ever higher towards the Boneback Mountains, despite the clear skies and summer sun. Varg finally clambered over the rim of the riverbed, more like the gradient of a dried-out waterfall now, and looked ahead. He saw an open, rocky space and then trees looming tall, the scent of pine sap thick in the air.

He heard a grunt, the sound of rocks skittering behind him, and he turned to see Sulich stumble, his long warrior-braid swinging wildly as scree shifted beneath his feet. Varg thrust his spear shaft out and Sulich grabbed it to steady himself.

“Hold tight,” Varg said, and pulled Sulich up the rest of the slope and on to the rim.

“My thanks,” Sulich said to him as he clambered on to level ground.

“And my apology,” Varg said, “for insulting you in Liga. About your kinsman’s war gear.” It was something that had chewed at Varg’s thought-cage, but every time he had looked at Sulich the warrior had ignored him, or his brows had been knitted in a way that discouraged any conversation.

Sulich looked at him and gave him a long and appraising gaze, a hint of a frown.

“I am… was, a thrall,” Varg continued. “Have been one all of my life. This warrior’s way, it is a mystery to me. I meant you no insult.”

Sulich maintained his gaze, then gave a curt nod.

“We will think on it no more,” he said.

“Thank you,” Varg said.

The two of them stood and looked at the trees. Something about the shadowed gloom set Varg’s hairs standing on end. The air was colder, Varg feeling it in his chest as he sucked in deep breaths, and he could see the glimmer of frost patches on tree bark. His breath misted.

They set off into the trees together. The ground was spongy with needles and stiff with frost. Varg heard grunting behind them, turned and saw Skalk climbing over the ravine’s rim. The Galdurman stopped, waiting while Olvir and Yrsa appeared over the rim behind him. They stood together in silence, staring at the woodland.

A decision was made in Varg’s thought-cage, and he stopped to take a drink from his water bottle, letting Sulich walk on ahead, and waited for Skalk and his two guards to draw near. The Galdurman glanced at him as Varg fell in beside him. Olvir the guard frowned and stepped closer to Skalk, while Yrsa’s eyes were searching the shadows of the pinewood.

“Your shield, it is unfinished,” Skalk said as they walked along together. “There is no blood-spatter upon it.”

“I am recently come to the Bloodsworn,” Varg said. “I am not yet one of them, have not yet taken their oath.”

“Ah, that is how they do things, then,” Skalk said, nodding to himself. “Like an apprenticeship to a blacksmith, or a farrier.” He paused, a smile twitching his lips. “Or to a Galdurman.”

“Aye,” Varg said.

“And what is it you wish of me?” Skalk said. “You have a question, or a request?”

“You see straight to the heart of it,” Varg said, a tremor in his veins. Fear. Hope.

“Time is a gift, not for wasting,” Skalk said.

“Straight to it, then,” Varg said. “I wish for an akáll to be done. It is important to me.”

“Hmmm,” Skalk said, nodding as they walked among the pine trees. “That is no small thing. The Bloodsworn have a Seiðr-witch. As you are one of them, or soon to be, why do you not ask her?”

“Because time is a gift, not for wasting,” Varg said, “and Glornir will not allow Vol to perform an akáll until I have sworn my oath to them.”

“Then swear your oath.”

“Glornir says I am not ready. And there is no time set upon it: it could be a day or a year. Or never. Glornir will only tell me when he deems me ready,” Varg said with a bitter twist of his lips.

“Ah, and time is beating like a drum,” Skalk said, nodding. “Rushing by. Oaths bind us, drive us, do they not?”

“They do,” Varg said, a tremor in his voice.

“I could perform this akáll for you. But there would be a cost. One part of which is that I suspect you would lose your place in the Bloodsworn. I do not think Glornir is the kind of man to look favourably on acts of… impatience.”

“It is not impatience,” Varg said. “It is the fulfilment of an oath.”

“Yes, to you this is important. To Glornir,” Skalk shrugged. “Trust me, he will not think well on you doing this. You must recognise this, before you go any further.”

Varg nodded, blew out a slow breath.

“I acknowledge it,” he said.

“And Glornir would most likely not look too kindly on me if I were to perform this akáll, with me knowing that it would take you from the Bloodsworn. I have to ask myself, is that something I want? Glornir and the Bloodsworn are an ally to Queen Helka, and this task is important to her.”

“It is nobody’s business but ours,” Varg said.

“That is… naive,” Skalk said.

“I can pay,” Varg said, his hand going to his coin pouch on his belt.

“I would want paying, of course. An akáll is no easy thing, and it takes its toll,” Skalk said, looking at Varg and the coin pouch. He frowned. “I do not need your coin. But there are other ways of paying: you would owe me a debt, as and when I call for it. I would require your oath. Your blood oath.”

“I see,” Varg said.

“Do not answer me now,” Skalk said. “It is too great a thing to decide in an instant. Think on it, and perhaps we shall talk more. Yes?”

Varg nodded. The weight of his oath pressed down upon him, the need to honour and avenge his sister heavier with every day. It gnawed at his soul. He knew Skalk was speaking wisdom, and he also disliked the thought of being indebted to this man, to anyone. But in Varg’s heart he knew that he had no choice at all. He drew in a deep breath.

Paused.

Something around him had changed. A tingling in the air, a silence, heavy as unforged iron. No birdsong or hum of insects. He frowned, slowing, and saw that Glornir and Vol had slowed ahead of them, Sulich catching up with the chief and Seiðr-witch. They were all walking slowly, heads turning, eyes searching the forest.

A whistle came from up ahead, deep in the woodland.

A warning from Edel?Varg thought.

He heard the hiss of a sword leaving its scabbard, Yrsa drawing her blade and shrugging her shield into her fist.

A figure appeared out of the forest gloom: Torvik, running back to Glornir. A hushed conversation between them.

Glornir held his hand in the air.

“Bloodsworn, on me,” he called out.

Varg quickened his pace and joined Sulich. The warrior had shrugged his shield from his back, his other hand resting on the hilt of the sabre at his hip. Instinctively Varg gripped his shield and slipped the leather cover from his spear blade, tucking it in his belt.

Røkia will be proud of me, he thought.

“What is it?” Skalk said as he joined them. Olvir and Yrsa both had shields and swords in their fists, and were scanning the gloom around them. More of the Bloodsworn were joining them, jogging through the forest, shields moving from backs to fists. In a score of heartbeats all of them were gathered, over fifty warriors forming a loose line behind Glornir.

“Show us,” Glornir said to Torvik, and the young scout turned and led them on.

They walked in silence, Glornir at their head, his long-axe held in both hands, Vol just behind him. Skalk, Olvir and Yrsa strode behind them, and then the rest of the Bloodsworn in a loose formation, shields ready.

Varg walked beside Sulich and Røkia, behind him the heavy tread of Einar Half-Troll.

“Stealth is never a possibility with you, Half-Troll,” Varg heard Svik mutter.

“I am doing my best,” Einar grunted.

Varg looked about him, his skin prickling. The pine forest felt strange, a sickly scent seeping through the air, creeping into Varg’s nose and sticking in his throat.

Glornir slowed to look up at a tree as they passed it. Varg saw it had a rune carved into it. Sap leaked down the bark and the rune was stained with something dark. Just the sight of it set Varg’s hairs standing on his neck.

They moved on and Torvik led them along a path that ran through an old stream bed. Banks of earth reared either side of them, roots of trees bursting free of the soil, twisted and knotted like arthritic limbs, draped with moss and lichen.

Varg saw shadowed figures ahead, Edel standing with her two wolfhounds, a few other scouts with her. Others stood on the streambanks. They were all staring in the same direction.

Fear trickled into Varg like seawater into a cracked hull.

Trees loomed around them, thick-trunked and grey-barked. Bodies hung from their boughs; rope was knotted about their ankles. Men and women were trussed like hogs for slaughter, arms stretched and dangling as if trying to reach the ground. They had been gutted and skinned, their flesh torn at by carrion, eye sockets dark and empty where they had been pecked clean, lips and tongues shredded. Piles of offal were heaped beneath each body, flies a swarm.

Varg counted twenty-four of them.

A rune had been carved into the meat of their chests.

Varg felt his gut lurch and he took a step out of line, bent over and vomited on to a moss-green bank.

“How long?” Glornir asked Edel.

“A month?” Edel said frowning. “It is hard to tell; the cold has preserved them.”

Some of Edel’s scouts were sifting through the offal with their spears. One called out and lifted a boot, and then a seax scabbard. Another speared a piece of fabric and raised it into the air. It was pinned with a cloak-brooch that glinted gold, fashioned in the shape of eagle wings.

Yrsa let out a hiss. Olvir strode towards the bodies, staring at the brooch on the cloak that the scout had lifted, then up at the corpses. His face was twisted, but it wasn’t fear that Varg saw there. It was grief.

“You knew them,” Vol said to Olvir. It wasn’t a question. She looked at Skalk, a frown creasing her face. “You sent them.”

Glornir looked at Skalk. Strode towards him. The Galdurman took a step away, shifting the grip on his walking staff.

“These are Helka’s drengrs,” Glornir growled. “You said she was stretched too thinly to send any of her warriors.”

A long moment passed as the two men stared at one another.

“I meant, any more of her warriors,” Skalk said with a shrug, breaking the silence. He walked around Glornir and stood beneath one of the corpses, prodding it with his staff, setting it turning. The rope binding its ankles creaked and frayed, and then the body dropped to the ground in a heap. Skalk turned it over with his staff, grunting with the effort, and squatted and stared at the rune carved on the torso. He frowned.

“Bannað jörð,” Vol murmured as she stood over him.

Skalk looked up at her.

“Forbidden ground,” she said.

I donot like this, Varg thought, wiping bile from his mouth and turning in a slow circle, his eyes trying to pierce the gloom.

He heard footsteps as Svik came to stand beside him, Røkia the other side.

“You all right?” Svik asked him.

“No,” Varg said. “I’m scared.”

“Fear is good,” Røkia said. “It sharpens the senses, makes you faster, stronger. It is the forge of your courage and will help you kill your enemies.”

Svik frowned at her. “It makes me want to piss my breeches and run away,” he said. Then he looked back at Varg. “We all feel fear.” He shrugged. “But we fight anyway. And we guard each other’s back. We are the Bloodsworn.”

“Edel,” Glornir said, “search the bodies. Search this ground. I would know all we can of who or what it is we are hunting.”

“Aye, chief,” she said.

“Bloodsworn, make ready to move out,” Glornir called out, his words setting crows flapping and squawking in the branches above them. He looked from Skalk to Vol, then at the Bloodsworn gathered behind him. “We have not been told the full truth, that is clear, but it makes no difference. We are the Bloodsworn, and we are here. We will rid these hills of whatever is lurking here, and we will earn our coin.”

They waited in silence as Edel and her scouts cut down the corpses, examined them and then scoured the land. Soon she was signalling a way forward, into the gloom. Glornir gave Skalk one last glower as he raised his hand and then he was marching after Edel and her hounds, the Bloodsworn following. Varg looked back at the corpses piled now beneath the trees and saw Olvir standing, staring at the first who had been cut down. Skalk barked a command and the drengr followed after them.

Tears were rolling down Olvir’s cheeks.