The Wolf Sea

beat out that tattoo on your head with the wet ends, you pig fart.'

I was still in that alley in Miklagard, hearing Radoslav say, calm as a stone: 'I heard him call you pig fart.'

How could I have been so wrong about him? Had those seidr witches worked his mind over to them?

I had not, of course, been wrong, only blind. The silver-sickness was on him from the start and the likes of Thorhalla and Svala had not missed it. It was bright in his eyes now, thick in his voice as he looked Finn over. His smile was dazzling.

`Hmm. . perhaps you, Horsehead?' he said, then shook his head and laughed. 'I am thinking not. Orm might even thank us for getting rid of your mouth.'

He studied, then grinned. 'Him,' he said, pointing to Botolf. `We went to such trouble to get him, after all.

Orm will talk if he is facing death.'

Skarpheddin signalled and some of his men moved forward, to be met with growls. They stopped and both sides tensed like rival dog packs. They were armed and our weapons were on the ground, but I knew Finn and the others would fight sooner than see Botolf dragged off. So did Botolf.

`Fleya,' he rumbled cheerfully, stepping forward. He winked at me and moved into the lee of Skarpheddin's men, then turned to face us — and knelt. I swallowed as Skarpheddin took the hint.

`Well,' he said admiringly, 'a man who spits at death.' His sword coming out was a snake-slither of sound.

`Just so,' declared Botolf and winked at me again. What was he doing? I was shaking so much I could hear my ring-rivets jingle.

I am thinking, though,' the giant rumbled on reasonably, `that you may have to neck me, just to prove the point to young Orm here, who is a deep thinker and stubborn.'

Are you so eager to die, then?' snarled Radoslav, bewildered by this He was not alone — I looked round at all the grim, puzzled faces. Finn scrubbed his head in an agony of confusion, the sweat rolling off him in fat beads.

Botolf shrugged his massive shoulders. 'You chose me, Radoslay. I am just showing you the weave of it.'

Skarpheddin stroked his forked beard and then shrugged and raised the sword. 'So be it,' he said.

I wanted to shriek, but Botolf winked for the third time and held up a hand.

`Wait, wait,' he said and turned to grin at Radoslay. 'If this is my wyrd — and it looks like it is, for sure

— then let me die as fair as I lived. I would hate to shear my hair off with my neck.'

Radoslav blinked, then laughed a nasty laugh, for he had seen — as we all had seen — how vain big Botolf was about his long red hair, now fixed in two massive braids.

`Do me the courtesy,' growled Botolf to Radoslay. 'Pull them free of my neck.'

Radoslav put his back to us as he moved to stand in front of Botolf, gripped a braid in each fist and pulled them forward, so that the massive neck was exposed. I sweated. Did Botolf believe he really was the frost giant Ymir? That his muscled flesh could bounce edged iron like a berserker?

The sword swung up, a red-gold arc in the torchlight.

`Wait. .' I started to say, then it hissed down, full force.

Botolf gave a bull bellow and his whole muscled torso heaved backwards. Radoslav shot forward, hands outstretched and shrieked with horror as Skarpheddin's blade sheared through his hands. One was severed completely at the wrist, the other lost all the fingers in a spray of flesh bits and blood.

Screaming, he reeled away, while Botolf rose like Ymir himself, the spider of Radoslav's left hand still gripping one braid, a grisly hair ornament that swung as he shoved fat-bellied Skarpheddin into Thorhalla, who cannoned into Svala and the Goat Boy.

Something black rasped: 'Odin,' and whirred across the room; men scrabbled for weapons; and Brother John roared: `Fram! Fram! Brandsmenn! Ljot!'

I scooped up my blade and started towards Svala, to free the Goat Boy. Botolf, roaring and beating with his fists, vanished into the middle of Skarpheddin's men and Short Eldgrim followed after, Kvasir on his heels. Finn lunged, snarling, towards Thorhalla, who shrieked and danced, her catskin cloak flying as she spat at Finn, shouting, 'Blunt, blunt.'

It was well-known that a seidr witch could take the edge off a weapon with such a look and chant, but Finn swung his sword anyway and cursed when the Godi bounced off her thick catskin cloak. Thorhalla cackled in triumph, but Finn, grim as a shoal in a storm, whipped up his Roman nail from between his boots and rammed it between her eyes. Later, he said it felt like pushing a knife into an old bird's nest.

A mailed figure loomed in front of me, bright light flashed on a blade and I struck at his shins as I ducked.

They cracked like twigs and he wailed and fell over, so that I moved past him to where Sighvat was collecting the Goat Boy from a shrieking Svala.

She was slumped and bloodied already, whimpering from the ruin of a face. A small puff of wet feathers lay at her feet, but Sighvat's raven had clawed and pecked her eyes and face before she had torn it to bloody pats, letting loose the Goat Boy to do it.

I hauled the Goat Boy away and he clung to me and looked up into my face, dry-eyed. 'I was not afraid, Trader,' he whispered, his voice winking on the brim of tears. 'I held your amulet and was not afraid.'

I dragged him to one side and hunkered down at the base of the great stern statue while the chamber filled with grunting, panting, howling men, hacking and slashing at each other in a fury of fear and frenzy.

They cursed and staggered and slipped in gore and lashed out at each other. Shadows danced madly in the guttering torches but Sighvat knelt nearby as if he was the only one in that place, gently gathering up the body of the raven, every last bloody shred and pinfeather, cupping it in his hands while Svala lay, face leaking blood between her fingers as she rocked and moaned.

The raven. Had it said 'Odin' because Sighvat had trained it to speak, as Kvasir had scoffed when we had first marvelled at it? Had he trained it also to kill, or was that the hand of One Eye? There was so much skin-crawling seidr in this hov, though, that even Sighvat's raven seemed the least of it.

The fight did not last long, though it seemed so. The last of Skarpheddin's dreng flung down their weapons when they saw Brand enter the chamber, magnificently mailed and chill as snow. Skarpheddin himself, beaten flat by Botolf, could not even rise or speak, for his ribs were smashed and his jaw broken.

Botolf sat, panting and scowling and running with blood from a dozen cuts as everyone sorted themselves out and realised that no one was hurt save for a few bruises and slices. We all crowded round, demanding to know where he was cut worst and Botolf sighed, holding out a hand, from which dangled one limp braid, sliced off in the fight.

Now I will have to get it all shorn,' he scowled.

We were laughing like girls from the sheer relief of it, echoing loud in that chamber. The Goat Boy danced and shrilled.

Then the whimpers and moans and blood sobered us.

`Help me, for the love of all the gods,' yelped Radoslav, his stump jammed under his armpit where it soaked his shirt. His other, fingerless hand he had stuffed between his thighs to try and stem the bleeding and he begged Finn to tie off his arms and save him.

It came to me again that he had not, after all, been immune to the women's seidr magic and that the thoughts in his head had not, perhaps, been all his own. I pitied him — but I was alone in this, as it turned out.

`You need a Greek chirurgeon,' Brother John pointed out and Radoslav whimpered agreement.

`You need a priest,' corrected Finn in a low, rasping snarl and raised his named sword.

Radoslav shrieked once as the blade — not blunt now, I saw — sliced him through the throat, then gurgled his way to meet his Slav gods.

Finn, grinning madly, leaned over and tore Radoslav's ruby earring out, then searched him for more spoil.