The Wolf Sea

now stabbed this new one in the thigh.

`Stairs!' screamed Brother John, pointing, and we all sprinted for them, me bringing up the rear just as the howling crowd surged forward — which at least got them between us and the rest of the better-armed bruisers who were supposed to keep order.

`Keep going! The door,' I shouted, pointing upwards. A hand grabbed my tunic and I heard it tear, so I whirled and let him have Botolf's chains, ring-bracelets and all. He fell back, screaming and losing teeth, which made the rest of the crowd think twice about crowding up behind me.

Ahead, Botolf pitched someone off the gallery and his shriek only ended when he hit the floor below with a meaty smack. Finn hauled me up and past him, turning to threaten the crowds. Something whirled through the air and smashed: an empty wine flask. A coin tinkled on the iron railings and Radoslav grinned.

`We must be good — they're throwing money-' He ended in a yelp as another coin smacked his elbow with a vicious sound. `Turds — who did that?'

We were stuck on the stair, I saw, unable to go ahead until Botolf dealt with the armed hard men keeping us from the door. He was too dangerous, with that Dane axe, for them to rush in and tackle but there were too many for Botolf to take on if he left the narrow gallery for the open area round the exit, where they could surround him.

The crowd below threw curses, jeers and anything they could find. Coins and cheap pottery bowls rained on us and it stopped being funny when Brother John went down with his head bleeding. I helped him up, to the poor shelter under the jut of the inlet valve and took a swift glance at the flap of skin, while the blood poured over his face.

`Morituri to salutant,' he gasped, which was apt and let me know he still had humour in him. Finn and Radoslav backed up the stairs, their little shields up — though we'd have more chance keeping dry under a fern, for all the use they were.

Then I heard Radoslav start muttering the chant that would set his Helm of Awe to working and I knew things were desperate but the clash and clatter were a cloud on my thinking. When I had to duck a missile and clonked my skull on the rusted inlet valve I roared with frustration and pain.

The inlet valve.

`Botolf!' I shrieked and he risked a half-look over one shoulder and saw me frantically waving for him to come to me.

`Finn. . Radoslav. .'

They lumbered off to take his place. Something smashed into fragments and the crowd, seeing the swords disappear, were cautiously coming up the stairs. More coins whirred and rang to the catcalls from the crowd.

Botolf, a cut on one massive bicep, loomed over me and I pointed to the rusting valve.

`Hit it.'

Brother John scrambled frantically from under it as Botolf spat on his hands, gripped the Dane axe and whirled it up. A wine bowl bounced off his shoulder and I doubt if he noticed. The axe came down, the boom of it echoing round the brick walls. It smashed the rusting valve open, the axehead snapped off and was whirled away in the great gouting stream of water that spat out, catching Brother John on one arm. It would have torn him away if I hadn't grabbed the other and the roar of it drowned out everything else.

The crowd baulked when they saw it arc out, as if Thor himself had decided to take a piss. Then they realised what it meant and went mad with panic.

Of course, we were first to the door and beat the rush. I found myself shooting out into the empty, cool night air of the amphitheatre, spilling from the dark entrance out into the middle of the dusty circle.

Alongside me, one of the hard men, spat out in my wake and on his hands and knees, looked at me, thought better of it, scrambled to his feet and darted off.

Finn and Brother John came up, then Radoslav and then, ambling carelessly away, the splintered shaft of the Dane axe across both shoulders, came Botolf, grinning and leaking blood. Behind him, spewing from the doorway and shrieking, came the fans of gladiators.

`By Thor's arse, Orm,' Botolf declared, clapping me happily on the back, so that I was sure I had been driven into the ground, 'you are a jarl and no mistake. Even if Skafhogg never says it to you, I do, for sure.'

I doubted if Skafhogg, the old Oathsworn's grizzled shipwright, would ever count me jarl enough — but, for the moment, I had no care of it. Finn, on the other hand, had something to say.

`You can drown him in drink,' growled Finn, 'but somewhere else. You can drown us all in drink, for I lost money on you.'

I followed them out of the amphitheatre, limping on that old ankle wound, the sound of the chains I dropped behind me lost in the screams of those running from the arena.

`Does this mean I am not a slave?' I heard Boltolf ask and wished then I had held on to the chains, so I could hit him.

We came to Skarpheddin's camp and talked our way past the Watch and up to his great tented hall in the dark, which confused the door-thrall. We had some Odin luck, though, for he was an Irisher known to Brother John from the night before, so it was no trouble for us to pile into the hov with an extra giant and rummage for sleeping space amid the curses of Skarpheddin's disturbed household.

Most were snoring in the reek of smoke and meat and mead and sweat, but two were blearily shoving

'tafl pieces round the board and Skarpheddin's skald was muttering his way through some draupa verse. I looked for Skarpheddin but he was in his lok-rekkja, his curtained bed-space — as was his mother, for which we were all thankful.

We all sank down in a cleared space, whispering out of politeness and secrecy and all of us wanted to know the one thing right away: where Valgard and the others were.

Botolf, craning to examine the slash on his bicep, picked at loose flesh and shrugged. 'We were sitting in Holmgard, waiting for word that Einar and the rest of you were rich,' he told us. 'Then word came that the Rus had fought with the Khazars, who had been beaten, and Sarkel had fallen, so we wondered how you had fared, for no word came.'

`That is because we were not there for it,' Finn chuckled and Botolf scowled blackly at him.

`Just so — which was the cause of what happened next. Prince Yaropolk came back, with his father and brothers — and Starkad, who pointed us out as Einar's men. Since Einar had run off from Yaropolk's retinue and disgraced him, Starkad thought to get his drakkar back that way, but burned his fingers, for Yaropolk took us and the ship. Us he sold to Takoub, a slave-dealer I will one day meet and whose head I will tear off.'

`Did you not get our messages, then?' I asked and he nodded grimly.

`Starkad came to where we were shackled and told us, with some delight it seemed to me, that Einar and Ketil Crow and others had all died on the steppe — and that little Orm had been made jarl.' He paused then and glanced at me, a little shamed it seemed. 'This we thought a barefaced lie,' he added, `since the likes of Finn Horsehead and Kvasir were still alive. Valgard said it was unlikely that the likes of Orm would be preferred to Finn. No offence, young Orm.'

`What happened then?' I asked, ignoring this, though my face burned. Botolf shrugged his massive shoulders.

`Starkad said it was true, all the same, at which Valgard spat and said we could now expect no rescue from. . I mean no offence, here, young Orm. . a nithing boy.'

`Skafhogg needs a slap,' Finn growled and Botolf, teeth gleaming in the half-dark, nodded agreement. I signalled for him to go on and he pursed his lips and frowned, thinking.

`Starkad wanted to know where that Martin monk had gone, but Valgard told him to go away and that he could as well die, screaming in his own piss. After that, we were shipped south, all the way to Kherson, and sold to the goat-fucking Arabs. Takoub packed us, nose to feet, in a big ship and sailed us off to Serkland.'

He stopped and blinked, the closest Botolf came to fear, it seemed to me.

`We came off the boat together, which was itself considerable luck,' he rumbled, shaking his shaggy head at the memory. `That was a grim trip right enough — others died, but none of the Oathsworn.'

`How is it you went one way and they another?' I asked.

`Someone saw me, I am thinking, and thought I would be better fighting than any of the others. All I know is