Chapter Fifty-Three: Varg

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

VARG

Varg ran through the pinewoods, his spear in his fist, the scent of needles and sap sharp in the air. Cold crackled in his chest as his breath misted in billowing clouds. Pain rippled down his ribs with each indrawn breath, a reminder of the dragon-born’s blow, but it was dull and manageable now, blending with the other hundred pains from the bruises and cuts he had acquired during the fight at Rotta’s chamber. Varg ran ahead of the Bloodsworn, some riding, others on foot. He could hear them behind him: Einar’s pounding feet, the drum of hooves. Ahead of him he saw the outline of Edel and her hounds as she flitted through dappled woods, running light-footed and soundless across the thick, spongy pine-needle litter.

I am Tainted. The thought spiralled through his thought-cage, the first thing there when he awoke each day, staying close throughout the course of the day until he lay his head upon his cloak and slept at night. I am Tainted. It was so clear to him, now. How he had been able to run faster and longer than anyone else on Kolskegg’s farm, the speed and savagery that had gripped him in the pugil-ring, but always controlled. He had been alone, set apart. A stranger in a hostile land.

Except for Frøya. My sister. She was Tainted too. Is that why I could feel her deep in my bones, in my veins, hear her death-scream in my head?He blinked and shook his head.

I am Tainted. When Svik and Røkia had first told him, he had felt cursed, and ashamed. Now, he no longer felt like that. He knew how the world viewed him: as less than human, as a commodity to be harnessed, enslaved and used. He was familiar with how that felt, had been a thrall all his life, so he understood why the Bloodsworn had not told him, had watched and waited until they trusted him.

Trust me. That felt… strange to him, gave him a lightness in his belly. To be trusted, to be called kin. Called brother. And as strange and shocking as it felt, it also made him feel… content. Like a smile locked away tight in his chest.

Edel slowed ahead of him and whistled, then stopped and waited, her two wolfhounds sitting beside her, their tongues lolling. Varg drew close to her and slowed, stopped and leaned on his spear. Other figures flitted through the woodland, to the left and right, Edel’s scouts moving towards them.

“Torvik told me you would make a fine scout,” Edel said to him as he rested a hand on his knee and breathed deeply. “He said you noticed other Bloodsworn scouts in the woods around Rotta’s chamber, before we attacked.”

The thought of Torvik was a knife in the gut, a sharp pain. Grief, anger. He missed his friend; had only realised Torvik was his friend now that he was gone.

Varg nodded.

“You have the makings of a fine scout, then, within the Bloodsworn,” she said. “Each of us finds our place.”

Røkia emerged from the trees, breathing heavily, sweat glistening and clouding in the cold. She had a spear in her fist, was running in her mail coat with her shield slung across her back, like Varg. She nodded a greeting when she saw him.

“You look fine in your new mail,” she said as she drew near.

He shrugged his shoulders, still getting used to the weight of his new-won brynja and his shield across his back. The belt around his waist helped to take some of the weight of mail from his shoulders, and once he had wriggled into it, which was easier said than done, it did not feel as heavy as it had in a rolled-up bundle. Even so, the mail, weapons and shield were all extra weight that he was unused to carrying.

“Why have we stopped?” he asked Edel.

“Can you smell anything?” she asked Varg, Røkia and the other scouts who were filtering out of the trees to join them.

Røkia caught the scent first, Varg a few heartbeats behind.

“Smoke,” Røkia said.

“And blood,” Varg muttered.

Behind them the drum of hooves and feet grew louder, closer, and Varg looked back to see Glornir riding out of the woodland, Svik and Sulich riding either side of him, Einar running alongside them, the rest of the Bloodsworn following. Glornir was glowering, danger leaking from him. He reined in and Edel told him of the scents ahead, of smoke and blood.

“Kit check: make yourselves ready,” Glornir called out.

Varg pulled a nålbinding cap from his belt and pulled it over his head, despite his sweat, then unbuckled his helm from his belt, the helm he had taken from the dragon-born at Rotta’s chamber, and pulled that over his woollen cap and buckled it under his chin. Sound changed, muted and dull, but he could still hear well enough. He checked the curtain of mail was spread across his neck and shoulders, then gripped his spear and waited. He saw Jökul crouch and scoop up a handful of pine needles and dirt, rub it between his palms and let it fall back to the ground. The smith stood and took his hammer from his belt, rolled his shoulders and clicked his neck.

“Onwards,” Glornir said, then kicked his horse on.

Edel moved ahead, Varg, Røkia and the scouts behind her like a flock of geese, spreading wide, Glornir behind them, the Bloodsworn all about him. Varg felt the first rush of danger, a tingling in his blood. They travelled in silence apart from the drum of hooves and feet, the clink and jangle of harness and mail, and the rhythmic breaths of the runners. Two days they had been on Skalk’s trail now, and all sensed that they were closing in.

They were travelling along a wide track through the trees, the mountains of the Bonebacks rearing tall as the sky on the left. Varg heard the sound of water ahead, fast-flowing, and the scent of smoke and blood grew stronger. A scream drifted on the wind, faint but clear, sending chills running across Varg’s neck. It was terror-filled.

The path opened up, a tree-shrouded hill sloping up to the right, and then they were moving into a valley, the cliffs ending on the left, and a timber wall appeared, built tight to the cliff face and running parallel to the path. A black cloud of smoke billowed across them. Varg held his breath, and then he was out the other side. Beyond the timber wall he saw a hall and tower on a slope, pressed to the cliff face. The tower burned like a rushlight, flames crackling and hungry, smoke wafting. The smell of blood and death was thick in the air, now. Behind the crackle and hiss of flames there was no other sound.

“Shields!” Glornir shouted and Varg shrugged his shield from his back, hefted it and ran on, all about him the Bloodsworn doing the same.

Edel held her fist up ahead of him and they slowed, moving from a run to a jog, then a walk as a gateway in the timber wall appeared, a river beyond it. The gates were open. Edel slowed, her hounds loping ahead. The wolfhounds reached the gateway first and stopped, crouched and snarling, hackles raised.

Glornir rode up, reining his horse in, letting her walk through the open gates of the fortress. Edel, Røkia and Varg entered beside him, spreading out into a sloping courtyard, the Bloodsworn following behind.

The ground was littered with the dead, first in their ones and twos, then more of them the further into the yard Varg walked. Ahead of him the slope climbed to a hall and tower. There was a splintering sound as part of the tower gave way and collapsed, smashing through the turf roof of the hall. An explosion of sparks and ash.

There were more dead in the courtyard, piled deeper around the steps to the hall, bodies twisted together, hacked and mutilated. And on the steps in the midst of it all sat a woman. She was gore-drenched, red with blood from her head to her boots, a long-axe lying across her lap. An ugly creature was perched upon her shoulder, with a nasty-looking sting on its tail, and another vaesen sat on the steps before the woman. It was small, with sharp claws and a half-spear in its tiny, slim-fingered hand. A tennúr. It had a mound of what looked like blood-covered nuts piled at its feet and was crunching on one of them as it looked at Varg. A shiver of revulsion passed through Varg as he realised they weren’t nuts: they were human teeth. And he didn’t like the way the tennúr’s gaze fixed for a long moment upon his own mouth. The two vaesen regarded Glornir and the Bloodsworn with suspicious, violent eyes.

Sitting around the woman’s legs were children, maybe twelve or fifteen of them. They were the only things in the area not spattered in blood. They didn’t seem to be scared of the woman, which Varg found strange, as his blood was tingling, and he felt the ripples of fear and danger pulsing off her. If he had hackles like Edel’s wolfhounds, they would have been standing stiff and straight.

Ahead of him Varg heard Glornir gasp a breath.

The woman looked up at them as they approached, her eyes fixing on Glornir. Varg saw recognition dawn in them.

“He’s not here,” the woman said, shaking her head, “he’s not here.” The pain in her voice was palpable. Tears had streaked clean lines through the blood and gore and fragments of bone that were thick on her cheeks.

Glornir reined in his horse and slipped from his saddle, then walked a few steps towards her and stopped.

“Orka Skullsplitter,” he whispered.

The woman stood.

“My brother?” Glornir asked.

“They killed him and took my son,” she said, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks.

Glornir walked up to her and spread his arms wide, pulling her into an embrace.