The Wolf Sea

He smiled then, one as warped as a dry bucket. I jerked my chin at the Goat Boy. 'What now, Valgard?

Your men are fled and there is a Saracen jarl who wants to ram a stake up your arse.' I hoped I sounded smooth and easy, for the terror of the moment howled in me.

And you will save me?'

I am your jarl.'

His mouth twisted in a spasm of rawness and he could barely get the words out. 'No jarl. Of mine. You nithing boy.' His face was a bruise of madness and his eyes, sunk like wells of despair, now held only the faintest gleam, but his voice was harsh and edge-sharp. 'We have paid the price,' he went on. 'Us. The ones Einar left behind like a sacrifice.'

Everyone paid the price for Einar,' I countered. 'But that is over. Odin smiles.'

I heard a crow-rasp laugh, rheum-thick and bitter with loss. Odin smiles? Are you godi also? If so, you know One Eye smiles only when the stink of sacrifice hits his nose.'

I knew that, of course. I had known it and had not shared it with the others before we fought. All the ones who had broken their Oath so badly had to die — and he the last of them. Finn knew it now and looked frantically from me to him and back.

I shrugged as languidly as I could manage and rubbed my beard, a gesture I had picked up from Rurik, shipmaster of the Oathsworn before he had died at Sarkel. I know Skafhogg saw it, with a flicker of recognition. They had been friends, the shipmaster and the shipwright, but I saw that things had gone past all friendships.

Botolf shifted and Valgard moved the sabre edge closer to the Goat Boy's neck and said: 'One more move, Giant Ymir, and I will have the head off this boy. I want to hear blades hitting the stones.'

Finn slumped wearily and flung the Godi down with a clang of disgust. I saw him look at Valgard and remember that they had been oarmates long before I had joined the Elk. I saw, too, that Valgard did not have the regard for it that Finn had and that Finn knew it, was drained by it so, that he had to hunker down, all strength to stand gone.

Botolf's byrnie-biter clattered down and Valgard looked at me.

I dropped my sword and he eased a little, though stayed clenched as a curl on his little hostage. The Goat Boy's face was pale, but his eyes were steady and I cringed for him. To be like this once for our sake was bad enough, but twice. . I vowed then that, if Odin spared him, the boy would never be put at risk again.

It was a surprise when this little one ran in out of the storm,' Valgard said, caressing the Goat Boy's cheek with fingers from the hand that gripped him close. 'I knew then there were problems — and that he was an answer to them.'

`Give him up,' Finn managed to wrench out hoarsely.

Valgard said nothing and his eyes scoured Finn's face with scorn. He would not give up: not he who had done what he did to survive, who could chew on another man's warm liver, or order a blood-eagling on his hated enemy.

Botolf shifted. He caught my eye. And winked.

My mouth went dry and I forced my tongue from the roof of it. I knew I had to keep Valgard's fluttering madness focused on me.

`What will you do with the boy?' I asked, offering extravagant promises to Odin to keep my voice from trembling.

`Hold him close until promises are given and sherbet drunk,' he said and laughed. 'Oaths sworn, too, maybe.'

He knew what he was about, for sure. If he drank sherbet from Bilal al-Jamil, it meant he had been accepted as a guest and could not then be killed. If he got us to swear an Odin-oath for the same, he would actually Loki his way out of this.

But the Arab would offer no chilled cup in return for the life of a skinny Greek boy — Odin would make sure of that, for he wanted the life of Valgard the oath-breaker and not even the Norns would deny him. Not even Allah.

Botolf leaned and shifted slightly and I saw Valgard's head start to turn towards him, knew Botolf was poised for a desperate leap. Odin settled gold on my brow.

`You will never manage it, Skafhogg,' I said scornfully. 'You think this scrawny-arsed boy is a good exchange for letting you escape? Do what you will with him, Trimmer. But eat him quick, for it will be the last meal you have.'

The howl from Valgard had everything in it, from rage to shame and back. He flung back his head and wolfed it all out to the sky — and Botolf hurled himself forward.

I knew he would never make it. Valgard snarled and cut viciously. That snaking curve of blade should have snicked Botolf's great, stupid head clean off his shoulders; he knew it, too, and was roaring himself into Valholl.

It was then that the Goat Boy took his hand from his Thor amulet and elbowed Valgard in the groin.

Afterwards, he said he had felt it hit just where he had thought it would after having seen Inger's naked body being washed: on the length of reed that allowed Valgard to piss.

It drove up into the soft depth of him, into the bladder. Valgard doubled up and screamed and the cut took Botolf in the left leg, a handsbreadth below the knee. The limb flew off in a lazy curve, slathering blood everywhere, and, even as he toppled like a mast-pine, Botolf's right hand came up and took Valgard by the throat, shook him left, then right, like a dog with a rat. Then he fell, howling and pushing Valgard backwards.

There was a sharp scream as Valgard hit the balcony and it crumbled like old bread. He went over like a flipped louse, flailing his limbs and with a short bark of sound that could have been laugh or curse, drowned out in the sound of the rune-serpent blade scoring a shrill, grating screech all the way down the support pillar until he hit the cracked paving far below with a wet slap.

Finn hurled himself at Botolf as the giant sprawled, the pair of them almost spilling over the edge of the balcony. The Goat Boy hurled himself at me and I knelt and swept him up; the pair of us were trembling and I was closer to sobbing than he was.

I was not afraid this time either, Trader,' he said, shaking so hard he could hardly get the lie between his teeth for chatter.

I couldn't reply for holding him and watching Finn drag Botolf back from the edge and strap his tunic belt round the bloody ruin of his leg.

Eventually, slick with the slime of it, he looked up as the blood trickled to a close. He grinned through the red mask of his face as Botolf groaned and told him to get his shoe, just before his eyes rolled into his head and he passed out.

Finn chuckled, blood outlining his teeth. 'The big idiot will live — but he'll be shorter by a foot after this.'