understand. Then he took out his long knife. .'
The tracker stopped, looking at the stone of my face. There was no reprieve there for what he had to say.
'He dug out the eyes.'
Finn went still, which was not what I expected. Hauk sprang to his feet and cursed; Red Njal pounded the ice until his fist bled and he howled, while Short Eldgrim whimpered, even though it was clear he did not quite know why — but Finn went as cold and still as a snow-crowned stone. When I reached out a hand to his shoulder, I felt the underneath of him trembling like a horse before a fight.
'What of Thorgunna?' I asked and the little tracker nodded miserably.
'They left his body on the steppe,' he said, 'and Kveldulf took the eyes and put them in a pouch on his belt, saying he would add Finn's remaining ear to them in time and that, if Thor permitted, he would perhaps make a whole new person out of pieces of the Oathsworn of Orm Bear Slayer.'
He stopped and considered me carefully, then added: 'He said the final piece of it would be your head.'
'What of Thorgunna?' I persisted, only vaguely aware of the Night Wolfs boasting.
Morut paused, looking round at the glittering eyes feeding on his words, clearly wondering if he was digging his own grave as he spoke.
'We had been at the river bank for no more than a few hours,' he said, 'arranging for boats and had started in to loading them when Thorgunna came up. We knew her at once, of course, and she went straight to Vladimir and knelt before him and asked for her husband's eyes, so it was clear she had found her man and seen what had been done to him. The prince did not look happy and said he was sorry for what had been done, for killing an Oathsworn had not been part of the weft of matters. Thorgunna simply repeated her request and the little prince looked like a dog on the point of being whipped, for he could not deliver the items without commanding Kveldulf — which he did. Kveldulf was not happy at being so commanded, but could do nothing else but hand over the pouch, which he did with ill-grace.'
Morut stopped then and glanced round at all the faces, pale, harsh as moons in the growing twilight.
'Go on,' I ordered.
Morut shook his head sadly. 'Perhaps it would be best if. .'
'Say it out!' Finn's voice was a face-slap and Morut jerked, then nodded.
'Thorgunna looked at Kveldulf with no fear at all, the pouch in her hand. Then she leaned closer to him and said something I did not catch — but he went wide-eyed with anger and hit her in the face.'
Now there was movement, frantic dashes; Gyrth swung his long-axe and slashed the frozen snow, cursing. But Finn stayed silent and only glanced over once, like a blind man, to where Thordis was weeping.
'She fell to the ground and he kicked her in the belly before Sigurd dragged him off and flung him away. I saw Jon Asanes go to her, to help her up and she said something to him that made him go white and stop dead and shrink, as if he had been lashed. She got to her feet on her own, but then doubled up and fell down again; there was blood and she went limp and did not speak.'
'Is she dead?' demanded Bjaelfi.
Morut shook his head, frowning. 'No. They carried her to shelter on a landed boat. Little Crowbone is sure she has lost her child, all the same. He was crying, for he had seen this before with his mother, he said, and was sure it was the same man who had done it.'
There was silence after that, while the darkness seeped round us and we sat like numbed stones, unable even to think. Morut eventually made a fire and the soft, red flicker of it brought us all blinking back to the Now, as if we had been asleep.
There was no need to ask what we would do next; the cold rage sat on us like some haar from Hel, so that even the fire guttered in the chill. It was Thordis who said what we had all been thinking.
'Odin's gift,' she spat. 'What made us think we could escape the curse of Fafnir's silver?'
'We will kill them all,' howled Hlenni, his face twisted. Red Njal laid a hand along his arm, stilling him.
'You do not have to put out a fire when all is ash,' he said. Then added, softly: 'As my granny used to say.'
All I could think of was my dream, where Odin had told me that One Eye would force a sacrifice from me and it would be something I held dear. Like all that shape-twisting god's promises, it was never what it seemed; the One Eye had not been Odin, but Kvasir and the sacrifice had been himself.
Until that moment, I had not realized how much I hated All-Father Odin. I hated him, cold and harsh, as we stamped out Morut's fire and moved off, hurrying like loping wolves across the mocking steppe, which glittered like riches under the silver-coin moon. I hated him when, led by Morut, we came up to the stiff shape, wrapped tenderly in Thorgunna's blood-frozen cloak.
I could not — dared not — look on the eyeless face of my friend; we wrapped and roped him and dragged him after us across the ice and frozen earth like a pack of old furs and no-one complained of the burden, for we would not leave him behind for the wolves.
As the dawn slid up, all haar-mist and pale shimmer, we knelt in a stand of brush and trees at the Ditch Bridge, the black dog of Kvasir's loss at our heels. Beyond the ditch was the dark sprawl of
To our right were the great bulked walls of Biela Viezha, red blossoms marking the night fires of the sentries.
I sent Morut in; I needed to know where Thorgunna was and where the boats were.
'You have, no doubt, a cunning plan,' Gizur said. Finn grunted, fishing out his nail from his boot, for he knew the cunning plan and, when I laid it out, Gizur scrubbed the tangled burr of his beard and frowned. After he and a few others had hoiked up their offerings on the matter, it became clear that my plan, cunning or not, was the only one.
So we waited and the dawn struggled, thick as cream, trying to make a new day and foiled by ice mist on the river. There was little talk and that in grunts; men fixed straps and eased mail; everything else they owned had gone with Vladimir, so all they had was what they stood in and held in their hands.
It was all they needed and, when Morut came back, I had everything I needed, too and turned to them, looking for words to say and finding nothing but the choke in my throat. So I looked at the wrapped bundle and the two men who would haul it, so that every eye turned to look at it, then turned to look back to me, bright and fierce as hawks.
'Fleya,' Finn growled softly and slipped his nail between his jaws. Then we rose in a pack and wolfed into the crawling haar and across the ditch, silent, fast and vengeful.
It was, as Morut said when he listened to it, not much of a plan — we attack, fast and loose because we would come up through the enclosures and tents, which would give us cover, but prevent any shield wall. We kill everything in front of us, grab Thorgunna and a boat and row like frothing madmen downriver, towards the tangle of channels that led to the Azov.
'Simple, brutal and with no great plan in it at all,' Morut added, shaking his head.
'I like it,' countered Finn truculently.
'Which only makes my point firmer,' replied Morut.
We came up through the buildings, leaping the low fences of withies, scattering horses, hacking out at the odd goat, plootering through the hoof-chewed dark mess of soil and shit.
The fortress of Sarkel, the White Castle, was a pale blur, like some great berg looming out of a dark sea. Around it sprawled yurts and some brick-built hovs, drunken fence enclosures and the framed tents of wintering shipmen. Somewhere by the river Vladimir shivered with his men, waiting for daylight to load boats and be away, before the garrison made up its mind what to do about him.
We were wolves, slithering in a hunting pack, but not down on chickens. We were showing our fangs to the hounds.
I was too busy watching Thordis with Short Eldgrim, making sure she kept him going in the right direction and avoided the fighting, so that I found myself in a herd of skittish horses, shoving them aside to keep Thordis and Short Eldgrim in sight.
Then I was hit by the rump of one swirling, excited pony and slammed into a
