Chapter Forty-Nine: Orka

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

ORKA

Orka rode along a narrow path, a sharp slope falling away to her right. Far below the white-foaming headwaters of the River Drammur roared through a narrow spit of rock. In the distance she could see the vale of Grimholt Pass, passing between the steep slopes of the Boneback Mountains that seemed to reach high as the sky. Orka could make out the line of a wall built across the vale, just a dark smudge from this distance, and behind it a hall and tower rising from an outcrop of rock. Smoke rose in thin columns from the fortress into a blue summer sky. Behind her stones shifted and spilled down the slope, Lif’s horse neighing as the mare lost its footing. Lif called out as the horse slid, but then righted itself.

The path veered away from the river, up a sharp slope of loose scree, and then the ground levelled and Orka was dipping her head to avoid branches, riding back into more pinewoods. There was a sound of shingle sliding as Lif and Mord urged their horses up the path and then they were all in the woodland.

“Was that the Grimholt?” Lif asked as he urged his horse up alongside Orka.

“Aye,” she said.

He nodded and swallowed.

She felt it too. The time of reckoning was drawing in upon them. Frost glittered on the ground, and Orka spied a long, thick thread of ice-reamed web in the boughs above them, shimmering as it caught a shaft of sunlight.

“Be alert,” Orka said, scanning the boughs.

“What for?” Mord asked, riding up on Orka’s other side.

“Frost-spiders,” Orka said.

“Berser’s hairy arse,” Mord muttered under his breath, his head twisting in a dozen different directions as he tried to look everywhere at once.

“Mord doesn’t like spiders,” Lif leaned and whispered.

Orka stifled a smile as they rode on through the mountains.

Orka squatted behind a rock and peered out at the Grimholt.

She was sat on a cliff edge, a steep slope draped in pine trees falling away to the River Drammur about fifty or sixty paces below her. To the north lay the Grimholt, set within a timber wall that ran across the river valley, taller than three men, anchored to the cliffs at both ends of the valley. A gate stood closed, armed men and women visible on the walkway upon the stockade wall. Mail and helms glinted in the sunlight. Behind the wall was an open space like a courtyard, ringed with outbuildings: stables, barns, a smithy, barracks and coops and pens. At the top of a gentle slope reared a thick-timbered hall with a green-turfed roof, smoke rising from a smoke hole, and at its rear a squat tower that hugged the cliff face, tall enough to command a view of the valley, both north and south.

Beyond the hall, to the north, another wall stretched across the valley, looking to be identical to the southern wall. More figures walked upon it. A fire smoked and flickered in a brazier inside the gates, figures standing around it and warming themselves.

The river frothed and foamed through the valley, but a new route had been carved into the land, a horseshoe-shape curling away from the natural river course, clearly built for vessels to row close to the hall, a pier jutting out into the river from the courtyard. Two snekkes were moored there now, and a wide, flat-bottomed trader.

“What now, then?” Mord whispered beside Orka.

Orka was muttering under her breath.

“What?” Mord said.

“I count sixteen warriors,” Orka said. “On the walls and in the courtyard. Probably more in the hall, or off-duty. Then there will be thralls and craftsmen. Their families. And Drekr, with his crew.”

If he is still here, she thought. He could be five or six days ahead of us, with the longer route we’ve been forced to take.

“Forty people in there, at least,” Orka whispered to herself.

Too many for me to kill.

“Well?” Mord said. “What now?”

“Too many for my first plan, which was to walk in and kill them all, except one.”

“I am starting to think that this is always your first plan,” Mord said, shaking his head. “It is what you did in Fellur, when you broke into Jarl Sigrún’s chamber, and back at the inn in Darl.”

Orka shrugged. “It is a plan I like,” she said.

“Not overflowing with deep-cunning, though,” Mord pointed out.

“No,” Orka admitted. “And deep-cunning is what we will need here. We watch a while, see if there is any sign of Drekr. Any bairns. We wait,” Orka said. “Perhaps we will go in when they sleep.”

“How?” Lif whispered, staring down at the fortress.

“Over the wall, or swim up the river,” Orka shrugged. “Either that or we will need to lure some of them out, into these woods, and thin their ranks a little.”

“How would we do that?” Lif asked.

“Some kind of distraction,” Orka muttered. Then she frowned and cocked her head.

“What is it?” Mord asked her.

“Listen,” Orka grunted.

In the distance, behind them, a sound filtered out from the trees.

“What is that?” Lif said.

It was a raucous, grating sound, like a disturbed murder of crows flapping and squawking as they rose into the sky, but Orka thought she could pick out words in the sound.

Ignore it. You have other things to worry about. The Grimholt. Drekr.

The sound grew louder.

Orka looked to the gatehouse of the Grimholt. If they heard it, they would send people to investigate.

“Perhaps we have our lure,” she said.

The sound grew louder, filling the pinewoods.

Orka ground her teeth and snarled. Then she was creeping away from the cliff edge and striding into the cover of the trees. She took her spear from where it leaned against a tree beside Trúr. The gelding whinnied at her and she patted his neck. Then she strode into the pinewoods towards the sound.

“Where are you going?” Mord called after her.

“To kill anyone who comes out of the Grimholt to investigate,” she said.

Lif and Mord followed, Mord swearing under his breath.

Orka ducked under boughs as the trees grew thicker and felt something brush her face, a sharp tingling sensation across her cheek and she looked up to see a hanging strand of frost-web. Twisting, she looking up, but the boughs above her were empty. She shifted her grip on her spear and walked on.

The ground sloped downwards, Orka moving north through the woodland, a voice in her thought-cage telling her that she was moving steadily closer to the Grimholt and west-running track she had spied from the cliff. There were more strands of frost-web in the trees, thicker, criss-crossing, making sunlight dance in fractured beams. The noise was deafening, now, the sound of boughs shaking and cracking, and as Orka walked deeper into the woods a word amid the clamour became clearly discernible.

“HELP!” Terror-filled: over and over.

“Orka,” Mord hissed. She glanced at him, saw fear in his eyes. “It sounds… dangerous.”

“This is Vigrið,” she answered. “Living is dangerous.” And she marched on.

She heard Mord and Lif’s voices behind her. It sounded like they were arguing, but she ignored them. After a few moments their footsteps followed her.

The sound was close: branches splitting, a voice screeching, a noise like a storm raging through the woods. And other sounds: a scuttling, scraping noise that echoed in the branches above her. It was darker here, the boughs above dense with frost-webs as thick as Orka’s wrist. She pointed at trees and bushes for Mord and Lif to hide behind, then stepped around a tree and froze, taking a moment for her eyes to adjust and fully understand what she was seeing.

She was looking into a glade, with dappled sunlight falling in beams through a thin canopy. On the ground was a dead elk, flies buzzing, its belly opened, entrails glistening.

And in the boughs above it was a black-feathered bird, huge as a horse. It was struggling and squawking, strands of frost-web stuck to its wings and body, wrapping around it. The more it struggled, the more enmeshed it became in the web, dragging on branches, bending them close to snapping, pine needles cascading like rain, black feathers fluttering down like autumn leaves.

Frost-spiders lurked in the trees, many of them, each one as big as a boar, eyes sparkling, venom glinting on icicle-like fangs. They waited, none brave enough to risk the thrashing talons and beak of the raven, yet.

And then one of them moved, a fat bodied, hoar-crusted creature with long spindle-legs, bright, glittering eyes and dripping fangs. It scuttled along a single strand of web that was curled around one of the raven’s talons.

“HELP!” the ensnared raven croaked, loud enough to make branches tremble and Orka’s chest vibrate.

Another sound: branches cracking, a shower of pine needles, and then a black shadow was crashing through the canopy. Another raven, huge as Trúr. It was squawking as it beat its wings and flew at the frost-spider on the thread. One claw reached out and it was snatching up the spider, talons puncturing and shredding the bloated abdomen. White, mucus-like fluid exploded and rained out over the forest floor.

The raven dropped the eviscerated strands of spider-flesh and set to pecking and clawing at the web that ensnared its mate, who flapped and shrieked.

“STOP FLAPPING, YOU FOOL,” the new raven rasped at the trapped one.

“BUT I’M STUCK, I’M STUCK, I’M STUCK,” the bird in the web yelled.

“I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW,” the newcomer yelled back.

Spiders moved in the boughs, as if the trees had come to life. One ran across a branch above the free raven, who was beating its wings, half airborne, half clinging to branches with one taloned claw as it tore and ripped at the web around its partner. The spider dropped towards the bird from the branch on a strand of ice-web.

Orka’s muscles twitched with the urge to move, to help.

This is Vigrið, she thought, a world of tooth and claw, where life is battle. Let nature take its course.

A memory slipped into her thought-cage, her last night with Breca, when she had seen him saving the moth from the spider. She had said something similar to him.

“But that is not a good death, Mama,” he had said in answer to her, as the spider had scurried towards the moth. He had looked at her with pleading eyes.

Without thinking Orka stepped forwards, set her feet and hurled her spear. It flew straight and hard, punched into the spider’s head and burst out the other side. There was a spray of fluids and the spider dropped like a stone, legs curling.

The spiders in the trees all stopped moving, many glistening eyes snapping to focus on Orka.

Mord stepped out of the shadows and stood at her shoulder, his spear raised. Lif strode out and set himself at Orka’s right side.

Even the new raven paused in its web-ripping to look at them with one shiny, too-intelligent eye.

The spiders hissed. Then they began to move, a seething mass of shadowed, many-jointed limbs.

“What have you got us into?” Mord said, fear a tremor in his voice. “I thought we were waiting to ambush the Grimholt warriors?”

“All plans go wrong,” Orka grunted. “Do this quick, and we can still hunt the Grimholters.” She looked at the frost-spiders. “Just don’t let one of them bite you,” she added.

“That’s unnecessary advice,” Mord said.

“What will happen if they do?” Lif gulped.

“Your blood will chill and slow in your veins,” Orka said, “until you cannot move, and then they will puncture you and suck it from you, as if your body were a horn full of crushed ice and mead.”

Lif shivered.

“So, their venom will not kill us?” Mord hissed.

“Not usually,” Orka said, her eyes fixed on the closest spider. “Unless they pump too much of it into you. I saw a man’s hand snap off at the wrist, once, because the blood in his veins had turned to ice.”

“This is not encouraging,” Mord breathed.

“Use your spears to keep them from closing,” Orka muttered. “Don’t be an idiot and throw yours away.”

Like I did mine.

She drew a seax and axe, set her feet.

A hissing from above and she looked up to see a spider speeding at her, dropping on a single thread from its spinneret.

Mord’s spear stabbed into its open mouth, Lif’s piercing its head. A gush of fluid as they ripped their blades free and the spider crashed to the ground, twitching.

The ravens went back to their web-ripping, the trapped one freeing a wing. A spider dropped upon its head, but the free raven skewered the spider with its beak and threw it through the air to splatter against a trunk.

There was a thud of spiders dropping to the ground around Orka and the brothers, three or four of them, forelegs raised, fangs twitching. Lif leaped in front of Mord and stabbed, but two more jumped at Lif, forelegs lashing out, throwing him to the ground. Mord screamed and lunged with his spear, and Orka stepped in close, sliced through a leg with her seax and buried her axe into a cluster of eyes. It collapsed, jerking and hissing.

A scream came from Lif, on one knee trying to stand, a spider on his back, fangs sunk into his shoulder. Mord bellowed, rising in pitch, but he was slicing and stabbing his spear at two spiders as they spread about him, hissing. Lif’s eyes bulged, his limbs turning blue and stiffening, and he toppled to the ground, shivering violently. Frothed ice dribbled from his chattering jaws. Orka darted in, chopping into the abdomen of the spider on Lif’s back, the creature’s legs jerking, and it fell away, hissing and frothing, liquid pouring from the rent Orka had made in its body, thick like soup.

Then something slammed into Orka’s back, throwing her to the ground. She kept hold of her weapons and tried to roll, but a great weight pinned her down. A foul stench swept around her, of death and decay and putrescence. She twisted, thrashed with her blades and felt the seax bite, a malevolent hissing in her ear, something wet and ice-cold dropping on to her cheek. A glimpse of a huge, curved fang, green-white poison beading its tip, and many, many eyes.

And then the spider was gone, the weight lifted, and Orka spun over and scrambled to her feet.

One of the ravens was flapping above her, the spider grasped in its talons, its many legs thrashing. As Orka watched, the raven’s talons constricted and the spider burst apart, an explosion of skin and cartilage and fluid. The other raven was free, and it was flying at the spiders around Lif, claws raking their backs, thick slime erupting in the talons’ wake.

“MUCH THANKS, MUCH THANKS,” the raven squawked at Orka and then the two giant birds were beating their wings and rising, crashing through the boughs in a burst of pine needles and sunlight.

A handful of spiders were still moving in the boughs, two more on the ground. Mord stood over Lif, his eyes wild, movements stuttered and jolting as he thrust his spear at any spider that moved.

Orka heard shouts in the woodland and saw the flicker of figures through the trees.

“Bollocks,” she muttered. “We need to get away from here,” she snapped at Mord.

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard from you in a long while,” he snapped, a tremor in his voice, stabbing his spear at a spider scuttling in. He looked at Lif, still shivering and convulsing on the ground. “My brother, will he live?”

“Not if we stay here,” Orka said.

There was a hissing, spraying sound and Orka looked up to see a spider hanging from a bough above her, spinning and turning a web between its legs. Orka shouted a warning as she leaped away, the spider casting the web into the air, floating down to drape over them.

It grazed her leg, sticking like pine tar to a ship’s hull, and Orka fell, hacked and sliced at it, cutting it free, though some still clung to her calf, burning and numbing even through her wool winnigas and breeches. Mord was stumbling, web clinging to one arm and leg, waving his spear over his brother’s twitching form. He was screaming. Spiders ran at him.

Orka heard the sound of hooves drumming on the pine-needle litter, growing louder, and two riders burst into the glade: a tall, blond-haired man with an ash-knotted staff in his hand and a woman in mail behind him. She was leading a third horse with a bound form unconscious and draped over the saddle, and a large chest strapped to it.

Orka felt a thumping in her head, like an extra heartbeat.

The woman raised a horn to her lips and blew on it, ringing out through the trees.

The blond man took one look around the glade. He drew a small seax and sliced it across the top of his hand that gripped the staff, blood trickling between his fingers on to the wood, then he raised his staff and shouted.

“Starfsfólk valds, forn aska, brenna þessa frostköngulær, þessar fölsku álfar.”

Flames erupted on the tip of the staff, as if it were a torch, and the blond man spurred his mount at the spiders, stabbing his staff into them like a spear. The first spider trembled and shook as the flames touched it, the blue veins that ran across its abdomen turning orange and then red. The skin on its back began to bubble and melt away, flames bursting and erupting. The spider screeched and hissed as it died.

Orka ran to Mord, limping with one leg numb and ice-touched. Mord spun around, waving his spear at her.

“Come on,” Orka said, sheathing her seax and trying to get close to Lif so that she could throw him over her shoulder. Mord stared at her a moment, eyes manic. “Mord, we need to leave now,” Orka said to him, trying to keep her voice calm, as if it would drive out the fear and panic in his veins.

He is terrified, and yet has fought: has stood over his brother.

Mord sucked in a deep, quivering breath and lowered his spear.

Orka stooped and swept Lif up into her arms, hoisted him over her shoulder and turned to run.

Figures loomed out of the trees: a woman in wool and leather following a hound, and warriors behind her, some in mail. Mord raised his spear and stabbed at a mailed warrior, his blade grating up their chest and plunging into their throat. The warrior stumbled, gurgled and fell away. Mord stood there, staring as other warriors ran into the glade and circled him.

Orka hefted her axe and snarled, moving to cut a gap in the warriors around Mord.

There were hooves behind her and she turned and saw the blond man, his staff swinging at her. A crunch to the side of her head and she was spinning, Lif falling from her grasp, the ground rushing up to greet her.