The Wolf Sea

kicking. Another scrambled up, screaming, tripping on its blue-pink entrails and a man heaved from the pile, coughing blood. He had time to look up and see my watered blade steal his life with a stroke.

Most were already dead, crushed in a great pile of men and horses so high we had to climb up it to get to the ones beyond.

Arrows whicked now, for the survivors had sorted themselves out and had thought what to do, but there was no fight in them — half their number were dead or struggling in the heap. I had the front rank shield those behind while they slaughtered the ones left alive in that pile.

Eventually, the Sarakenoi rode off, no longer shrilling their la-las. The crew gave a great cheer and beat on their shields and the Goat Boy was dancing up and down, pausing now and then to fit a stone in his sling and fling it at the retreating backs. If he hit one, it made no difference.

Finn came up, wiping sweat and blood from his face, and clapped me on the back. 'That showed the goat- humpers — and only two of ours dead and a few more scratched. Odin's hairy balls, young Orm, you are a deep thinker for war right enough.'

The rest of them agreed, after they had looted the dead. Horses still kicked and screeched, a high, thin sound that bothered us more than the moans of men. Those animals we killed, fast and hard, and the few which had surfaced from the carnage and stood, trembling and shaking, we gathered up and soothed, for we could use them.

There were thirty-four dead cavalrymen and almost as many horses I offered silent thanks to Tyr One

–

Hand, the old god of war, for the idea of bringing those raven talons from Patmos.

Brother John tended the wounded, none serious — and only two dead. One was a Dane whose name I did not know. The other was Arnor. One of those dying, sliding horsemen had held on to his lance and it had skewered Arnor through the bridge of his butchered nose, for he had hammered up the nasal of his helmet to keep it from rubbing on the wound.

`He never had any luck with that smeller,' Sighvat said gloomily.

They found Faysal for me, six down in a heap, the life flung from him and the shock of it left on his face in a snarl and a thin trail of blood from the corner of his mouth. His. neck was snapped and his head was turned so that it seemed he looked over his own shoulder at what had been his life to that point. The Goat Boy spat on him and then gave him a kick.

I let them loot for a while, but they were experienced raiders and knew the value of speed and that it was pointless trying to strip heavy armour and weapons to carry. While they searched for coin and ornaments, Brother John and I began stacking wood from the ruined buildings round the deepest heap of corpses until others noticed and were shamed into helping.

Then we placed Arnor and the Dane on top of the pile, his harpoon clutched to his breast, and burned them all, which was the old way, the East Norse way and, some said, better than a boat-grave. I found a mulberry leaf in Arnor's mouth when I sorted him out for burial and could not bear to throw it away. I have it still.

We left the place shortly afterwards, putting the wounded who could not walk on three horses, the two remaining heavy sacks of raven feet slung on another. We moved faster now, almost trotting towards where the Goat Boy said the village of Kato Lefkara was, until only that greasy plume of pyre smoke marked where we had been.

That and the treacherous, swooping Loki kites. I shivered, almost believing that Sighvat was right about them having arranged this feast.

The Goat Boy sat and watched me the way a cat does, unblinking, so that you can feel the eyes on you even when you are not looking.

We were all crouched in the lee of a slope, sheltered by a stand of pines. Water slid over stones in a quiet chuckle and everyone chewed cold mutton and flatbread and spoke in grunts if they spoke at all.

`Brother John says you believe in strange gods,' said the Goat Boy in his stream-clear voice. 'Are you a heathen, then?'

I looked at him and felt immeasurably old. Two years ago I had been much as he was now, knowing nothing and priding myself on the courage to cull bird eggs from sheer cliffs, or sit cross-legged on the rump of my foster- father Gudleif's sparkiest fighting stallion in its stall.

Now here I was, on a bare, damp hillside somewhere on an island somewhere in the Middle Sea, the jarl torc dragging at my neck, dead men's faces filling my dreams, chasing a runed blade and the secret of a hoard of silver.

Are you?' I countered.

`No! I am a good Christian,' he said indignantly. 'I believe in God.' Nearby, Brother John nodded appreciatively. Encouraged, the Goat Boy added: 'But you believe in lots of false gods, Brother John says.'

'Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt,' I said and Brother John coughed and grinned, though the Goat Boy did not understand.

`Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish,' I translated. I did not know who had first said it, but he had a Norse head on his shoulders. The Goat Boy was none the wiser. Anyway,' I added, 'once the Greeks had lots of gods, too.'

`The monks in Larnaca said we lived in fear of them until we saw the light,' the boy said sombrely.

Brother John chuckled. 'The truth is, young John, that those gods feared us, envied us, for they could not die. Without the threat of death, how can you feel the joy of life?'

Unlike our gods,' I added, 'who know they will all die one day, to make a greater life for all afterwards.

That's why All-Father Odin is so grim.'

The Goat Boy looked from me to Brother John and back. `But isn't that what the church teaches us about Christ, Brother John?'

`Just so,' Brother John agreed and the Goat Boy's brow wrinkled with confusion, until Finn slid over in a scrabble of stones and shoved goat cheese and bread at him.

`Give it up, biarki,' he growled, scowling at the pair of us. `Talking about gods just makes your head hurt.'

They sidled away together and Brother John laughed softly again. 'I don't think we enlightened that little bear,' he offered, then looked at me sideways. 'All the same, I thought you had found God, young Orm.'

I have heard many rumours,' I replied flatly, 'but I have never met the man.'

Brother John pursed his lips. 'You are growing darker,' he said seriously. 'And your dreams are blacker still. Careful you do not fall into the Abyss, Orm, for you will be lost there.'

I was saved a reply by the return of Hedin Flayer and Halfred Hookeye, who had been scouting over the other side of the ridge, looking at the huddle of houses that was Kato Lefkara.

`There are armed men there,' Hedin reported, 'maybe fifty, with shields and spears and blades, too, but no armour and only black turbans on their heads. But they have bows, Bear Slayer, and can pick us off as we cross the open ground.'

`Horsemen?'

Hookeye shook his head. 'Nor any sign. The ones who fought us did not come here.'

I did not think they would. They would have ridden straight to Farouk, to tell him what had happened and now he would be riding here, for some of those riders would have heard me say this was our destination.

I looked at the darkening sky.

`There are people there, too,' Hedin said, sucking shreds of goat to try and soften it enough to chew.

Of course there are. It is a village,' Finn growled, but Hedin shook his head.

`Children and women, with cloths covering their faces. That's not Greek, is it?'

No, it was a Serkland thing. Of course this Farouk wasn't a simple robber, he was one of the lords who had been told by the Miklagard Emperor to quit Cyprus and had decided to stay and fight, and had all his people with him. Now he had a town and a couple of villages and was a real threat.

`We will hit them at last light,' I said, `so that they will find it hard to use their bows. All we have to do is get to the church and find this thing Balantes wants. Then we get out and away.'

Are we stealing it then?' Hookeye asked and even some of his own oarmates chuckled.