The White Raven

However, trade is a common tongue to all and so we had food and even some green wine — which Finn immediately took charge of — and, above all, news that the ice was melting from the centre of the Azov, for the whole sea had been frozen. It meant that there was now a flow to it and that had broken the ice in the narrowest part, where it entered the Sea of Darkness.

'So there is a way out for us,' beamed Gizur, having laboriously learned all this. 'We can sail anywhere you want, Jarl Orm.'

Onund cleared his throat meaningfully. 'As long as it does not take us more than a long swim from land. I do not trust this log boat.'

In the morning, I was chivvying them up and loading stores on board. In the night, we had howed up the Bjornsson brothers, re-wrapping them in full view of the Khazars so that they would see the dead had nothing with them worth digging up. That and a gift of hacksilver from the hoard would make sure the Khazars let the brothers sleep peacefully. They had no weapons or armrings, but I had openly promised their shares to their mother, so I thought their fetches would stay happy with what had been done.

Kvasir stayed with us, all the same, though I was not sure where he would finally rest — he would not last all the way back to Ostergotland — but Thorgunna had to have a say in that and she was pale as milk and sleeping when we brought her into the shelter of the boat's prow.

We pushed sweatily away into the middle of the river, while children ran up and down, cheering and pitching sticks at us as their parents looked on and waved, smiling.

Slowly, groaning with the effort of it, we swung the riverboat round the bend and away down the black river, the oars chopping up the thin porridge of ice, while the banks grew thicker with birch and willow. I watched until even the smoke of the Khazar camp had vanished, then turned and almost fell over Crowbone, wrapped in his filthy white cloak and staring over my shoulder with his double-coloured gaze.

'What?' I asked, thinking he still brooded on Finn's blow. 'Do not let Finn's manner bother you; he thinks well enough of you, but tempers are short. .'

'No,' he said, still looking over my shoulder, 'I am not concerned with Finn — one day, I will claim weregild for that blow, all the same. It is the birds I am watching.'

Then I turned to look, squinting into the low, creeping mist. A skein of ducks arrowed high overhead.

'Good to see birds back,' I agreed, smiling. 'The winter is losing grip.'

'All the ducks are skinny,' remarked Crowbone. 'Like the ones hanging in that village we left. They are feeding furiously now that the ice is broken.'

I frowned, remembering the skinny ducks and not understanding why he was so concerned. Then he turned his flat, two-coloured gaze on me.

'Why, then, are hungry ducks flying off the water?'

It took me several seconds to answer that in my head and when I did, my heart leaped up and threatened to bang through my teeth and out my mouth entirely. Everyone else started with astonishment when I suddenly sprang forward, screaming.

'Row, fuck your mothers — row!'

We were too few and too late. The long black shapes slithered round from where they had set up feeding ducks, seemed to fly up to us, even laden with Vladimir and his mailed druzhina warriors.

Two boats; my heart collided with my battered boots. One would have been enough. In the end, I told my crew to ship oars and they did so in a scramble and started sorting out weapons and equipment, even before they had stopped puking and heaving in air.

'Well,' growled Finn, climbing up beside me in the prow that faced them. 'This will be a hard dunt of a day, I am thinking.'

A deadly dunt of a day, I was thinking, as I hefted the only weapon left to me, an adze axe I had found on board. All they had to do was sit back and have those Slavs and their curved bows shoot us down; half of us had no shields and we had one bow and a handful of arrows left.

The boats came closer, one with Dobrynya and the little shape of Vladimir up in the prow, the other with Sigurd Axebitten and a strange half-animal which dragged gooseflesh up on my arms until I realized it was Kveldulf, with a whole wolf pelt draped round his shoulders, the mask up and over his helmet.

'Well, well,' murmured Finn. 'There is the bladder I have to prick.'

'Is he really a Night Wolf?' I heard Ref ask fearfully.

'If he is such a shapechanger,' Onund answered scornfully, 'then he is no danger, for it is broad daylight.'

They came closer, a couple of boat lengths away and backed water, sliding to an ungainly halt. Together, we drifted like leaves, sluggish and turning imperceptibly.

'Give up Prince Olaf and the treasure you stole,' I heard Vladimir shrill. I had half an idea it was not what he wanted; what he wanted was to get close enough to throw his little spear and yell 'Idu na vy' then slaughter us to a man. What stopped him was. .

Crowbone. He slithered between Finn and me, clear and vulnerable on the prow and between us and any arrows, making it impossible for them to even try and hit us. I laid a hand on his shoulder: despite the strange seidr in him, despite all he had inflicted on us, I liked the boy and did not want to see him hurt.

He looked up at me for a moment, then turned his head forward and cupped his hands to his mouth. 'There was once a man,' he shouted, high and shrill, 'let us call him Vladimir.'

'This is not the time for such matters,' Dobrynya interrupted, his voice echoing blackly over the waters.

'Vladimir had to drive his sledge a long way to the wood for fuel,' Crowbone went on, ignoring Dobrynya completely, his voice an arrow aimed at the little prince. 'Then a Bear met him and demanded his horse, or else he would eat all his sheep dead by summer.'

'Prince Olaf,' Dobrynya tried, then fell silent when Vladimir raised one imperious little hand, listening intently. His uncle, face as grim as Perun's wooden statue, fumed silently.

The boats slid closer together, so that Crowbone did not have to shout to be heard.

'The Man was faced with freezing or agreeing to the bargain,' Crowbone continued. 'For no Man likes to see his sheep eaten dead. He promised the Bear he would bring the horse to him tomorrow if he could be allowed to cart home the wood that night. On those terms the Bear agreed and Vladimir rattled homewards, but he was not over-pleased at the bargain you may fancy. Then a Fox met him.'

'Enough of this!' roared a familiar voice, a bellow that startled thrushes from hiding with a whirr of wings.

'Is that yourself, Kveldulf?' Finn shouted back. 'I hear, with my one ear, that there is some part of me you would like to own. It may be that once this boy has finished with his tale I will present you with the gift of a priest.'

'I have heard of that sword,' came the roared answer. 'I shall use it to cut off your other ear. .'

'The Fox,' trilled Olaf into the end of Kveldulfs scorn, 'asked Vladimir why he was down in the mouth and the Man told him of his bargain with the Bear. 'Give me your fattest wether and I will soon set you free, see if I cannot,' answered the Fox and the Man swore he would do it.

'The Fox laid out a clever plan, that when Vladimir came with the horse, the Fox would make a noise from hiding and when the Bear asked what it was, the Man was to say it was a bear hunter, armed with a powerful bow.'

When he paused to take a breath, you could hear the water gurgle in the silence.

'Next day, matters worked out exactly as the Fox had said and the Bear grew afraid when he heard of the hunter and his bow. The voice in the wood asked if the Man had seen any bears. 'Say no!' pleaded the Bear. And the Man did so. 'So, what stands alongside your sledge?' demanded the voice in the wood. 'Say it is an old fir- stump,' pleaded the Bear. And the Man did so.'

'I have heard this story,' said a delighted Short Eldgrim behind me, but everyone shushed him to silence, for the story held us all, while the sweat trickled coldly down our backs at what might happen when it was done.

'The voice in the woods,' Crowbone continued, 'said that such fir-stumps were worth rolling on a sledge for fuel. Did Vladimir want a hand? 'Say you can help yourself and roll me up on the sledge,' said the Bear and the Man did so. 'Bind it tight or it will fall off,' said the voice in the woods. 'Do you need help?'