matted with blood. A great black bird hopped off it, wiping its beak with quick sideways flicks and completely unconcerned.
Illugi Godi made a quick, chanting prayer, but Sighvat, whom we called Deep-minded and whose mother had been the same, gave a snort of scorn.
`That's a crow, a big hoodie,' he said. 'Any minute it will fly off, widdershins, not sunwise.'
As if in response, the bird flapped off to the left, sluggish with Steinthor's eyes.
Sighvat felt our stares and looked at us, bemused. 'What? All crows are left-handed.'
`Crows don't have hands,' Ketil Crow replied, staring at Steinthor's flesh-flaked head.
`Nothing to do with these,' snapped Sigh-vat, holding up his hands. 'It's all here,' he went on and tapped his head. 'Why do you think you are called Ketil Crow?'
And that was true enough. Ketil Crow was corrie-fisted, a left-hander and a fearsomely difficult man to fight.
Bagnose, however, said nothing at all, just stood by that head looking wildly round for the rest of the body. We all spread out and looked, too, but found nothing and it was my thought that he had been killed elsewhere and the head carried to where we could not fail to find it, as a warning.
Illugi Godi and Bagnose lifted the grisly thing off the spear and put it in a hole we dug. We mounded earth over it but, like the bigger mound we'd left far behind, I had a notion that scavengers would dig it up before we'd gone too far.
It was a poor thing for the likes of Steinthor and, for days afterwards, I kept hearing his voice telling the story of finding me with the white bear, in that other world where I had once been a boy whose biggest adventure was finding a gull's nest with four eggs.
That done, we moved on, reaching the river as darkness fell, but Bagnose was not asked to go scouting again. That night, as we huddled round the small fire, eaten by the crushing dark, we knew there would be no more riddles or saga tales from the dark, hunched figure who sat and stared, not at the flames, but into the darkness.
Even whales die on the whale road.
The endless rolling steppe affects your mind, paring away thoughts until there is little more left than the desire to put one foot in front of the other. At one point I had the sick, dizzying feeling that I wasn't walking forward at all, but that the whole steppe was moving backwards.
I even stopped, to see if it carried me backwards and, when it seemed to do just that, as everyone kept on moving, I cried out with fear and dropped to my knees. It was Wryneck, coming up behind me, who grabbed me by the back of my mail and hauled me upright. As my feet stumbled forward I snapped out of it and turned to gasp my thanks.
The flicker of movement silenced everyone, making all heads turn. Hild, in one strange, fluid movement, stood, the red cloak falling from her. She leaped from the cart and strode forward in her bruise-blue dress, long dark hair whipping in that endless, soughing wind.
We all stared. She strode forward for another dozen paces, then stopped. One arm rose slowly and pointed. 'There,' she said. And we looked. And saw only the endless steppe.
A magic, invisible mountain, is it?' growled Flosi. No one else spoke, but we moved forward to where Hild stood—giving her a wide berth, I noticed, as if she smelled bad.
And we gaped, the shock of realisation coming to us as the steppe fell away into another
`They diverted the stream,' Einar marvelled after we had moved down further. `To hide the entrance, they turned a river across it. This was once . . . a lake, a great pool, with water flowing in there'—he pointed—'and running out there to the Don.'
Everyone marvelled, save Illugi. The godi had not said much of anything other than muttered chants.
Once, in the night, I had seen him by the fire casting his rune bones and muttering to himself and thought then that he was growing as dark as Hild in some ways.
Atil's howe,' breathed Valknut.
If this one is to be believed,' growled Ketil Crow, moving past him to where Hild squatted. She smiled beautifully up at him and he scowled. 'Cunt to jawline,' he reminded her and moved on.
Einar took us in a scramble down the
Hild, silent and hugged to herself, raised one pale hand and pointed at the stones on either side of it, fat stones as tall as a man, ones you would not be ashamed to rune and set up on a hill in memory. But these, though pocked and scarred, were unmarked; however, Illugi looked at them suspiciously.
`The door,' declared Einar with his wolf-grin, his crow-hair flapping in the breeze. `We can set up camp here and start digging at first light.'
Men found fresh energy, unloaded gear and supplies and rubbed their hands with glee. Round the fire that night there was banter and talk of what they would do with all that silver. There was no doubting it now, for we had all seen the marvel of it.
Ketil Crow and Einar said nothing at all, but sat with their own dreams whirling in their heads. I doubted if they shared the same ones, though.
Atil's howe. A mountain of treasure. She had known after all, it seemed, and the realisation of that made me shiver—for how could she have led us so unerringly to this unmarked, unknown place? How could anyone have done that and still be like the rest of us?
I watched her sitting upright in front of those two stones and that cleft, which was like the dark invite of a woman's body. Her hair floated in the wind, a dark snake-crown, and, even with her back to us all, she exuded something that made the fear rise in you like old mead fumes. She sat there all night, was still there in the morning, she had not moved.
Did not move, until the horsemen swept on us.
Einar had split us, sensibly enough. There were those to guard and we wore all our gear, while those digging had stripped to the waist and were hacking away at the earth. A cart was being broken up, so that the wood could be used as shoring, for we had no clear idea of how much we'd have to dig to break in.
The drumming of hooves brought all heads up. The diggers ran for the cover of the carts; those on guard hefted their weapons. Of the twenty, about half knew how to use a bow and were nocking arrows.
But they also had mail and fat padded arms, all of which made drawing and loosing accurately a nightmare.
The horsemen swept down the
I heard them thud into the earth around me. One hissed over my head. Another smacked my shield boss with a clang and dropped to the ground.
They were true steppe warriors, these, all sheepskins and wool hats and active as cats on those horses.
They didn't so much ride them as climb all over them, shooting their little arrows until they got close, then whipping out their light swords, darting them like snake-tongues at us from the other side of the horse, and swooping away before we could strike.
They swirled and whooped and vanished and appeared again in the dust until we were dizzy with it, whirling our heavy swords and axes at nothing.
A figure stepped out of our ranks into the dust.
`Hold!' yelled Einar. 'Don't let them drag you out into their killing ground.'
But it was Bagnose and he was past caring. He nocked, took aim, shot and a man pitched off. Walking forward, he nocked, took aim, shot and another horseman shrieked.
They saw him then and the arrows hissed. He took two full in the chest, staggering him. But he walked forward, nocked, took aim . . .
He had no mail, no padding, for he was an archer who took pride in it and never missed, wanted nothing to tangle his flights or string.
But Bagnose was already dead, though his legs and heart didn't know it and he was still roaring something
