Chapter Fifty-Two: Elvar

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

ELVAR

Elvar stood and stared. She distantly heard herself screaming; could not believe what she was seeing.

Biórr stood over Agnar’s body as he bled out into the ash and snow of Oskutreð’s plain. Agnar’s feet twitched, a last spasm rippling through him, and then he was still.

Biórr stooped down beside Agnar, ripped the pouch from his belt and delved inside it, then stood and raised jangling keys.

“Ilmur, Kráka,” Biórr cried out, “you need be thralls no longer. Join us. Take your freedom.”

Elvar looked back and saw Ilmur burst from behind the ranks of the Battle-Grim, bounding forwards across the ash-plain. Behind him came Kráka. She was running too. Ilmur sped past Elvar and Grend, and reached Biórr, who placed the key in the lock of Ilmur’s thrall-collar and turned it, the collar opening with a click. Biórr took it from the Hundur-thrall, then held it out to Ilmur. He looked at it, grabbed it and hurled it away. Kráka reached them and Biórr did the same for her.

Elvar heard the clank of the collar hitting the ground.

“BETRAYER!” Elvar screamed.

Biórr looked at her.

“Join us,” he said, holding a hand out to her.

“Agnar,” Elvar cried.

“He got what he deserved,” Biórr snarled. “A slaver, dealing in others’ misery.”

“Why?” Elvar said.

Biórr spread his arms wide.

“Because I am Tainted, too,” he said. “Ilska protects us, gives us a home.” His face bubbled with rage and anguish, tears in his eyes. “We Tainted are human, too, are people of flesh and blood, can feel joy and happiness, pain and heartbreak. We are not animals to be hunted and sold.”

The blood of Rotta that Vörn sensed among us, Elvar thought. Rotta the rat. Rotta the betrayer, deceiver, trickster.

“You killed Thrud,” Elvar said, remembering Thrud’s wound in the back, Biórr lying unconscious on the tavern floor.

Biórr’s face twisted with shame and guilt. “I did not want to do that,” he said.

Elvar took a step towards him, hefted her spear and hurled it at him. It flew straight and fast. Biórr raised his shield and stepped to the side, unnaturally fast, the spear slicing through the space where he had just stood.

Elvar drew her sword and strode towards him.

Grend grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“Look,” he said, pointing with his axe.

The Raven-Feeders behind Biórr were marching forwards, drawing into lines, their shields raised.

“Let them come to us,” Grend said.

She pulled against him, rage bubbling through her, at what Biórr had done, to Thrud, to Agnar, how he had made a fool of her. She snarled and spat, the thought of his blood spilling on the ash-covered ground raging through her.

“Stay here and you’ll not avenge Agnar,” Grend shouted at her, his knuckles white around her wrist. “Stay here and you’ll die.” He pulled on her again. “Face him in the shield wall, with the Battle-Grim about you.”

Elvar stared at him, snarled and nodded, then they were running back to the Battle-Grim, slotting into the front row and turning to face the Raven-Feeders.

Ilska was leading her surviving brother and the others who had ridden with her off the field, towards the carts and Vörn, who had leaped down from her mother’s head, silently waiting. Elvar saw that Uspa had gone to stand close to Vörn.

The Raven-Feeders who had marched behind Ilska, over sixty warriors, were striding towards the Battle-Grim.

Elvar sheathed her sword and drew her seax, the blade almost as long as her forearm.

This will be shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield, knifework, seax work, a time of heave and stab, no room for sword skill. She was breathing heavily, could hear her heart pounding in her head, not from exertion but from shock.

Agnar is dead. He had always been so full of life, of courage and energy. And he had won, slain Skrið the dragon-born in single combat, a deed worthy of a saga-song. It was too much for her thought-cage to comprehend: rage and grief raw and surging through her. She ground her teeth and hefted her seax, one side razor sharp, the broken back that tapered to the tip sharpened too.

“BATTLE-GRIM!” a voice cried out: Grend, beside her. “Be ready for the shield-storm, the battle-fray. These gutless worms are betrayers, carrion-feeders come to steal our gold and our glory. They have slain our chief like the niðing cowards they are. Time to show them what true courage and battle-fame is.”

The Battle-Grim roared a cold-hearted cheer.

“SHIELD WALL!” Grend bellowed, and as one the Battle-Grim shuffled tight in their lines, raised their shields and pulled them in, a crack of linden boards as they set the wall, hide-covered rim pressed tight to iron boss, like the rippling scales of a snake. Elvar pounded the iron cap of her seax against her shield, Grend doing the same with his axe, all about them warriors following suit, beating a death march for the Raven-Feeders as they approached.

Thirty paces away, twenty, ten, and the Raven-Feeders halted. Elvar searched for Biórr in their ranks but could not see him among the faces before her, growling and spitting and hurling insults from behind the shield rims as they sought to summon their courage. In their eyes she saw pride, anger, and fear too. It is a hard thing to fight in the shield wall, where death is closer than a lover and the world condenses to the steel-fisted warrior before you: a place of snarling fury and gut-churning fear, of blood and shite and pain.

Shouts came from Elvar’s right. She recognised Vörn’s voice, and Uspa’s joined to it. There was a flicker of flames, a flash of incandescent light, a tremor in the ground, and there was more screaming. A horse neighing and the sound of wood splintering.

A cart?Elvar had no time to look. The Raven-Feeders roared and surged forwards.

“READY!” Grend bellowed. Elvar saw the brightness of his eyes and the trembling in his limbs that took him when the battle-rage swept him. She set her feet, shoulder into her shield, Seax drawn back.

There was a concussive crack as the Raven-Feeders slammed into them, Elvar’s shield battered, Grend beside her snarling. She felt the line wavering, a tremor through her shield arm, her feet scraping and sliding in the ash-thick ground as she fought to keep her place, heaving back against the immense pressure bearing down upon them. She knew that the Raven-Feeders outnumbered them, their wall at least three lines deep, all of that weight pushing and grunting and heaving against her. A gap opened between her shield and Huld’s next to her. Elvar thrust her seax through it, felt the blade bite, and then hot blood slicked her hand. She shoved harder, twisted the blade and heard a scream, pulled her seax back and rammed the gap closed.

To her right Grend grunted and growled, chopping his axe over the top of his shield rim. She heard the clang of iron, saw a body slump to the ground, then shifted her weight and stabbed down into a glimpsed body, flesh bared above the neckline of a brynja, white, panicked eyes in a bearded face. Another scream cut short; the grate of bone and she dragged her blade free.

Behind her a shield held her upright, one of the Battle-Grim stabbing over her head with a spear, and the weight against her shield slackened. Elvar pressed hard, set her feet and looked over the top of her shield. There was a gap as a warrior fell away, hands clasping at blood gushing from a hole in their throat. They sank to the floor, dragged away by someone in the second row, and another figure loomed, stepping into the gap before Elvar could press into it. It was a woman, a pitted iron helm on her head, a hand-axe in her fist, screaming death and murder. Elvar swayed away from the bearded blade as it chopped at her face, ducked and pushed, stabbed under the rim of her shield and sawed through winnigas and flesh, felt the blade grind on shinbone, sawed the seax back and then stabbed over the top as the axe-wielding woman hissed with pain and lurched on her injured leg. Elvar’s seax stabbed into her open mouth. A gush of blood and a gurgled scream.

“AGNAR!” Elvar screeched. “BATTLE-GRIM!” She heard the cry swept up around her and the battle-joy filled her, a wild strength in her limbs, a hot rage in her thought-cage, driving her on. More faces loomed before her: men, women, they appeared snarling and fell away screaming, her seax and Grend’s axe reaping bloody ruin. The battle-storm raged around her, sounds merging, a deafening, roaring, muted din that echoed inside her helm as steel clashed, shields splintered and warriors screamed. All was blood and death. Slowly the strength leeched from her, pain pulsing from a score of cuts and bruises, her limbs heavy, shield arm numb, battered, muscles burning. She gasped ragged breaths, continued to stab and shove and stand. Beside her Grend was roaring, eyes bulging, spittle spraying from his mouth as he hacked and chopped and killed.

Something slammed into Elvar’s shoulder: it felt like a punch, making her stagger. She saw a man diagonally across from her spitting curses, an ash-spear in his fist. She tried to stab back at him, but her seax would not rise, her arm not obeying. Looked down and saw his spear blade had torn through her brynja and stabbed into the meat of her shoulder. She shoved hard with her shield, pushed the warrior in front of her back a half-pace and the spearman pulled his weapon back for the killing thrust.

Elvar spat at him, knowing there was nothing she could do.

Then Grend’s axe smashed into his face, carving through nose and mouth. He ripped it free in a spray of blood and cartilage and teeth, the spearman falling away, a gurgled scream through his ruined mouth.

Elvar swayed and took a step back, her legs buckling, and then an arm was wrapping around her, dragging her back, the line behind her parting, a warrior stepping forward to take her place in the wall.

“Let go,” Elvar grunted at Grend, who was pulling her free of the shield wall, half-carrying her back into the open ground behind. She tried to lift her seax, saw she still gripped it in her blood-slick fist, but her arm wasn’t doing what her thought-cage was telling it to do.

Grend pushed her down so that she fell on her backside and sat in the ash and mud, looking up at him. It was strangely quiet here, a dozen paces behind the wall, where battle was still raging. Elvar saw the Battle-Grim were holding. Here and there was a prone body, boots poking through, or a corpse lying still, dragged out of the way by the second row, but she could see the Battle-Grim were gaining ground. Step by battered half-step they were pushing the Raven-Feeders back. Agnar had chosen his battleground well, the Ulfrir-wolf mound protecting the left flank, the carts arrayed to protect the right.

Grend kneeled beside her and gave her his water bottle.

“Drink,” he grunted and she realised her mouth was dry and sticky with ash and blood. She drank, swilled her mouth out and spat, then drank some more. Grend took a swig from the water bottle, then poured the rest over Elvar’s wound, leaning close.

“Cut the muscle,” he muttered. “You’ll have to fight with your left hand.”

Elvar nodded. Grend had trained her since she was a bairn, drilled her in the weapon court at Snakavik until she could use both left and right with little difference. But she could not hold a shield as well.

“Find a spear and kill them from the second row,” Grend said.

A high-pitched screeching erupted behind them and Elvar twisted, looking back.

Vörn stood beside Uspa, both of them side by side, barring the approach to the remains of Oskutreð. Uspa stood with her hands raised, a rune of fire glowing in the air before her, and a handful of warriors lay on the ground before Uspa and Vörn, some blackened and charred with flame, others looking like they had been torn to pieces, their wrists, ankles and necks wrapped with thick vine. Others stood impaled and slumped on branches that appeared to have just sprouted from the earth. Ilska and the surviving warriors were stood with her in a line facing them, all with bloodied fists. They were chanting, and runes of flame were igniting in the air before them, melding and glowing, flames leaping to the ground and spreading, speeding in a crackling line towards Vörn. They swept past Sighvat, who was still bound by vines to the ground, the fat warrior squirming and shouting.

“Greinar vernda mig,” Vörn cried out, the ground before her shifting and bubbling, and vines punched free of the earth, knitted together like a wattle-fence in the fire’s path, but the flames crackled and hissed and engulfed them, a wave of flame surging through the vines and on, snatching at Vörn’s legs like hungry beggars.

There was a hiss and crackle and Vörn screamed as her feet ignited. Flames rippled up her legs, gouts of black smoke billowing, the stench drifting across the plain. Vörn batted at the flames, but they only spread, catching in her fingers and hair, her screams rising in pitch, and she gasped for air, mouth contorted. She swayed and fell, crashed to the ground, flames devouring her.

Ilska walked forwards, her dark cloak billowing behind her.

“Farðu frá,” she said, as she squatted down and punched the ground. There was an explosion of ash and the ground bucked, a rippling line rushing away from her like a serpent hidden just beneath the waves. It slammed into Uspa, exploded beneath her and sent her hurtling through the air. She crashed to the ground and rolled, then came to a stop, unmoving.

Ilska stood and moved on, the surviving warriors behind her following, maybe seven or eight of them left standing, including Drekr. Other warriors were jumping from the carts’ driving benches and dragging the children from the backs of the carts, hauling them towards the dead tree by ropes and chains. Seventy, eighty, ninety children, all with collars of iron about their necks. Elvar thought she saw Bjarn among them.

Ilska reached the blackened stump of Oskutreð and set her foot upon it, climbing up on to the open space where the huge, bolted door lay. Puffs of ash filled the air, the pounding beneath the earth rocking and rattling the door.

Those that followed Ilska climbed up on to the blasted tree, the children behind them. Some cried and wailed; others walked silently, like warriors who have accepted their fate.

“Bjarn,” Elvar croaked, her voice hoarse.

She saw him clamber up on to the tree, a collar around his neck, and join the others upon the giant trapdoor.

Ilska and the warriors with her shouted at the children, dragged them, commanded them until they stood in a circle, feet edging the line of the great door. The warriors from the carts joined Ilska’s band, swelling their ranks. Ilska reached inside her cloak and pulled out a book. It was thick, wrapped in some kind of red hide. She opened it, then began to read.

“Réttu upp hendurnar, þú verður að hlýða. Spillað blóð í saklausu barni, sameinast og vaxa af krafti. Brotið rúnir og innsigli töfra.” Ilska called out, and there was a flare of red within each thrall-collar about each child’s throat, a ripple of fire. The children cried out, and their eyes glazed over. Each child raised their right arm, palm open.

Ilska drew a small seax from a scabbard across her back and sliced her hand that held the book, then slashed the palm of the child in front of her, and the ones to either side. They said nothing, made no move, did not cry out.

All of Ilska’s companions did the same, cutting their own palms, then the hands of the children about them, until all of them stood there, bleeding, blood dripping on to the wooden door beneath their feet.

“Blóð drekans, lík rífa, voldugur, sameina og binda, brenna þessa hindrun, opna leið fyrir herra okkar,” Ilska cried out, shaking her hand, droplets of blood spraying around her.

“Blóð drekans, lík rífa, voldugur, sameina og binda, brenna þessa hindrun, opna leið fyrir herra okkar,” all those on the great tree cried out, echoing Ilska, shaking their hands, and blood rained down upon the ancient door, pooling, trickling through the cracks into the darkness beneath.

Elvar and Grend just stared, entranced, even as the battle still raged behind them.

The constant pounding beneath the earth stopped abruptly, as if a giant had sucked in a deep breath and held it.

And then there was a crash, the huge door on the tree jolting. Ilska staggered, some of the children falling.

A huge, muted roar leaked out from the cracks around the door, vibrating in the soil, deeper than an ocean storm, other voices joining it, higher in pitch but fierce and proud. Screams. Roaring. A growing, rumbling thunder.

“RUN!” Ilska shouted, finding her balance and breaking into movement, sprinting and leaping from the tree’s stump. All those around her were doing the same: Ilska’s followers, children, a flood of people.

Something crashed into the trapdoor and there was a great splintering, cracking sound, a cloud of dust and ash rising up, engulfing all still on the tree as they were hurled into the air. Ilska was thrown from her feet, the red-skinned book spinning from her grip. A silence. Elvar holding her breath, staring, and then there was another crash beneath the door, huge splinters of wood erupting, the ground shaking like a ship in a storm-wracked sea.

Elvar and Grend were thrown into the air, a tremor passing beneath them like the ripples of a boulder hurled into water, throwing the fighting shield walls into chaos, men and women falling, staggering.

Another silence, like a held breath, and then the door exploded, splintered wood and bodies tossed skyward, disappearing in an expanding shroud of dust and ash and debris. Elvar was heaved from her feet, weightless, the rolling cloud engulfing her. She crashed to the ground, tumbling, came up against something solid, knocking the wind from her, then just lay there, coughing and wheezing as the dust settled around her, searching for Grend. He was nowhere to be seen, bodies everywhere, scattered like chaff on the wind.

From the centre of the dust storm, deep within the earth, screams echoed. A roar of pain. The earth shaking. Voices shouting.

A figure burst from the smashed-open doorway, spinning through the air, rising high and then falling, crashing to the ground a hundred paces away from Elvar and rolling, coming to a standstill. A winged woman. She was red-haired, rust-feathered wings draped around her; her body was wrapped in a coat of mail that glittered like fish-scales, a scabbarded sword at her hip. She groaned. Elvar just stared at her, open-mouthed.

A roar burst out from the shattered door, rolling across the plain, filling it until Elvar put her hands over her ears, a fresh cloud of dust roiling out. The hint of something huge moved within that dust cloud, and a darker shadow emerged from the earth.

And then Lik-Rifa, corpse-tearer, dragon, last of the dead gods, burst into the air.

Elvar lay on the ground, slowly took her hands from her ears and sat up, staring.

A stench rolled across the plain, of something long dead, of death and destruction and age-old corruption. Lik-Rifa beat her tattered wings, the turbulence of their motion buffeting Elvar and all those around her back to the ground. The dragon’s body was thin and emaciated, ribs stark through pallid scales, almost white and translucent with dark patches of rot and weeping yellow pus. Her jaws were wide and razored with teeth longer than spears, pale horns rowed and curling upon her head. Maniacal eyes blazed red with feverish intensity, like a forge-lit fire.

It was hard to tell how big she was, up there in the sky, but when she spread her wings she blotted out the wan sun that gleamed behind the clouds. Small shapes dangled from her wings and body, snagged and snared upon her scales. Elvar realised they were corpses, flesh-rotted and putrefying.

Two smaller figures burst from the ruin of the broken door, both winged, like the woman who had crashed to the ground close to Elvar. One had golden wings and blonde-flowing hair, a spear in her fist; the other had white-feathered wings and silver-bound braids in her hair, a nocked bow in her hand and a sword at her hip. They beat their wings and spiralled up after the soaring dragon, the white-winged woman loosing arrow after arrow. They speckled the dragon’s side, small eruptions of white flame where they pierced her, and the dragon roared her pain, tucking a wing and looping in the sky. Her huge, razored tail lashed out but the winged figures soared around it, continued to stab and pierce the dragon’s hide with spear and arrows.

The golden-winged woman screeched like an eagle and flew at the dragon, raked her spear along Lik-Rifa’s belly, scales and blood raining down. The dragon let out an agonised roar and twisted in the air, head snaking out on a serpentine neck, jaws snapping at the woman, who veered. There was a spray of feathers as dragon teeth snagged a wing and the woman crashed into the dragon, her spear plunging deep into the beast’s neck, blood sluicing. Lik-Rifa let out a scream that sent Elvar huddling back to the ground with her hands over her ears. The dragon twisted and spun in the air, one tattered wing slapping into the bow-wielding woman, sending the bow flying and the woman hurtling away. The warrior with the injured wing clung to the spear in Lik-Rifa’s neck and drew a long knife from her belt, then started stabbing into the dragon’s throat. Another screech and Lik-Rifa was spiralling and diving, speeding towards the ground. There was an explosion of earth and ash as she crashed to the surface, skidding and ploughing through a wagon, timber smashed to kindling, the horse bound to the cart thrown on its side, neighing wildly, legs broken. A great dust cloud rose up about the dragon and woman.

The white-winged warrior appeared in the air again and circled the cloud, drawing her sword.

Dust settled, the dragon rising from the ashes, the golden-winged woman standing before Lik-Rifa, long-knife in her hand.

The woman above tucked her wing and dived like a well-cast spear, slamming into Lik-Rifa’s back, her sword stabbing deep. Lik-Rifa’s head reared high with an ear-splitting scream. The woman on foot ran at the dragon, one golden wing hanging limp, long-knife glinting, and she leaped, her knife punching deep into the dragon’s chest, blood spurting. Another agonised scream from Lik-Rifa.

They are going to kill her, Elvar thought.

Figures moving, a blur and Ilska appeared, running into the fray, the hulking Drekr behind her. They both leaped at the golden-winged woman, sword and axe stabbing and chopping. Feathers erupted and the woman screeched and twisted, ripping her knife free of the dragon, who was bucking, throwing the white-winged woman from her back.

Drekr slammed into the golden-winged woman and the two of them crashed to the ground, rolled together and came to a halt. Ilska ran after them, hovering as the woman grabbed Drekr’s axe-fist and pinned him, raising her long-knife. Ilska hacked down, her sword chopping into the woman’s neck. There was a scream and a spurt of blood, Ilska’s sword rising and chopping again, the winged woman collapsing, blood spraying.

Lik-Rifa was roaring as the white-winged woman spun through the air, wings beating, trying to pull herself out of her fall, but she was too low. She smashed into the ground, skidded and stopped, rose to her knees and then the dragon slammed a long-clawed foot down upon her. Jaws lunged, crunching down on to the woman’s head. A savage wrench of Lik-Rifa’s neck and a screech was cut short.

The dragon lifted her neck and gulped, swallowing the head, then let out a ground-shaking roar and stamped on the headless woman, again and again, ripping and rending with her taloned feet: blood, bone, feathers torn and pulped and mashed to a fine mist.

Ilska and Drekr stood silently, staring.

Lik-Rifa slowed, then stopped, looked around and saw the horse from the cart, still laying on its side, eyes wide and white, sweat-streaked with fear and pain. The dragon’s wings beat and Lik-Rifa lurched into the air, came down hard upon the horse, claws pinning it, jaws biting, tearing. Flesh ripped, blood spurting, bones cracking as the long-caged dragon feasted.

Elvar stared in silent awe and horror.

Then the dragon was raising her head, the scales of her jaws dripping red with gore. She licked her lips and shivered, huge and proud and dreadful, her razored tail lashing, gazing about with red-glowing eyes. She took a long, shuddering breath, her eyes focusing upon Ilska and Drekr standing before her, small and insignificant against her hulking form.

“Ahhh,” the dragon sighed with a rumble that shook Elvar to her bones and reverberated in her chest. She heard a scraping sound behind her and saw Grend, ash-covered and bleeding, crawling towards her. She moved to him, dragging herself across the ground with her one good arm, and they collapsed upon each other, lay there staring at Lik-Rifa.

A silence settled, punctuated by the groans and screams of the wounded or dying, the wailing of children scattered by the dragon’s arrival.

Figures appeared from the ash: more of Ilska’s dragon-born and Raven-Feeders, rising from around the battlefield where they had been tossed like the wooden figures on some giant tafl board.

Ilska approached Lik-Rifa, twice the size of Snakavik’s mead hall, and fell to her knees before her, Drekr and the others doing the same.

The dragon regarded them, dipped her sinuous head and breathed deeply, stirring hair and clothes and ash.

“My children,” Lik-Rifa growled, her voice like a mountain slide, like a summer storm fractured with lightning, rumbling into the distance. A tremor passed through her, from snout to tail, and then her shape was shimmering, twisting and coiling like mist, shifting and changing, contracting, shrinking, until a woman stood before Ilska and her kin. She was tall, taller than any man, at least as big as the bull troll Elvar had slain on Iskalt Island. Her body was lean and striated, skin pale and raw and scabbed, weeping pus. Blood oozed from wounds. She was clothed in a tunic of grey, red-woven at the neck and hem, a belt studded with gold about her waist and a dark cloak billowing about her like wings. Her hair, black as jet, streaked with silver, was pulled back tightly, braids woven into it. She had a sharply beautiful face. Red coals glowed in her eyes.

“What has become of my world, my children, my warbands?” she said, her voice hard as the north wind, a tremor shivering through it. She looked around at the battle-plain, the shapes of the long-dead become part of the landscape. Her red eyes flickered to Ilska.

“What has Orna done?” she snarled, lips twisting, wringing her hands. “I heard them screaming, my children, my faithful, but I could not help them, because of that winged BITCH. ORNA DECEIVED ME AND I WAS CAGED.” She roared those last words, the sound of it seeming too loud for her lungs to create, but Elvar felt it in her bones, felt the ground quake beneath her.

“The world has changed, my lady,” Ilska said. “But we are your faithful, the pure. We have laboured the long years to set you free. We are few, but more will come, now that you are released from your cage.”

“Hhmmm,” Lik-Rifa rumbled, then reached a hand out and stroked Ilska’s cheek. It was big enough to crush her head, if she wished. She looked around again, her eyes coming to rest upon the shattered stump of Oskutreð, and shivered. “I hate this place,” she snarled, the muscles twitching in her face. “I must get away from here. I would see my hall of Nastrandir.” She shook, a tremor passing through her, and suddenly she was shifting and changing, growing, expanding, wings sprouting and arching from her back, until she was a dragon again, bigger than two mead halls. Her wings snapped out, pale and tattered, with a blast of foul air, and then they were beating, lifting her from the ground. “I have languished in a hole and devoured nothing but corpses for three hundred years,” she said with a disgusted twist of her lips. “I would feel the wind in my face and hunt again,” she rumbled as she rose into the air, wings lashing and rising higher and higher, spiralling up.

Ilska and the others burst into motion, gathering up the carts that were still in one piece, turning them back on to their wheels, rounding up horses that had bolted in a flurry of motion. Other warriors searched the plain, gathering up the thrall-collared children and loading them upon the wagons. Elvar and Grend just lay there, numb and staring, as if the end of the world had come and there was nothing else they could do except observe its destruction.

Raven-Feeders passed close to them, but ignored them, just hurried on with their search for the children or rounding up horses. Here and there Elvar saw others of the Battle-Grim, lying in the ash, stunned, staring, pale-faced.

And then Ilska was shouting out commands and whips were cracking, the carts pulling away, warriors riding or marching around them.

And above them Lik-Rifa spiralled in the air. She opened her jaws and roared, shaking the sky, and then she beat her wings, flying south into the soft-glowing sky. Corpses hung from her wings.

Elvar watched the dragon shrink into the distance, Ilska and her Tainted warband following after her like a serpent slithering across the ground. She looked at Grend.

“Only blood and death and misery will come of this.” She remembered Uspa’s words to her, only a few nights ago. She had not believed the Seiðr-witch then, had thought her mad. She believed her now.

“What have we done?” she whispered.