half throwing him sideways and whirling stars into him; he knew it was the toppling Rovald even as he heard the grunting man fall. No, he thought, in a strange quiet place in his head that was all the more mad for the stillness there. Not killed in a woman’s dress. I will never live the shame of it down.
Crowbone hardly knew he did it, he dropped in a crouch so low that he felt his arse brush the stiff grass and sand, half spun on one foot and scythed the legs from the horse, even as the rider’s longsword hissed a silver arc over his head, a backward cut that snicked trailing hairs from the horse-plume of his fancy helmet.
The horse shrieked, a high, thin sound, one fetlock cracked, the other severed almost entirely. It drove nose first into the sand, throwing up a bow wave, its screams swallowing the hoarse bellow of the rider as he was hurled to the ground.
Crowbone was up and moving even before the rider had stopped rolling. The Lord Duegald, tangled in his blood-streaked white cloak, staggered to his feet in a spray of wet sand to find a tall, beardless youth standing over him, his odd eyes glaring like burning glass. He had time to wonder why the man wore what appeared to be a dress.
The Galgeddil lord had a long-nosed face, neat with trimmed beard and bewildered blue eyes. Somewhere, a mother loved that face, but Crowbone, shaking with anger and fear, snarled it all out on the long nose and blue eyes in a furious flurry of wet-sounding chops.
When he surfaced from this, it was all over. A few horsemen were bolting for it, riderless mounts following after. A horse hirpled, one leg skewed. A man dragged himself, coughing and cursing, until Kaup, grinning, dragged his head back by the sand-and-blood-crusted hair and slit the terrified screams out of his throat.
The aftermath saw men retching, or panting, open-mouthed with disbelief and mad exultation that they had survived. Some did this after every fight and no-one thought the worse of them for it; the unaffected considered it booty-luck, since they were hunting, unopposed, in crotches, under armpits and down boots for hidden valuables, paddling in blood and all unconcerned. There was a rich choke of spilled shite and new blood.
Staggering a little, Crowbone went to the dead lord’s horse, which was flailing sand and screaming, and cut the life out of it in two weary strokes. The ending of the screams was like balm.
‘Good fight,’ said a voice and Crowbone turned to see the great grinning face of Murrough wandering towards him, hook-bitted axe over one shoulder, tossing a fat purse in the other. He looked at the dead man in the blood- soaked white cloak and nodded admiration.
‘I thought he had you — but you fooled him entirely,’ he added. Crowbone kept his lips sewed on the fact that he had thought the man had him, too. Mar loped up and searched the lord swiftly, came up with hacksilver and trinkets and handed that and Murrough’s fat purse to Crowbone, looked at the sword briefly and left it alone.
That was all a good sign, Crowbone thought. Not that Mar knew how matters worked in the Oathsworn — that they shared all, though looted weapons and ring-coats were the jarl’s to give or keep — but that he did it easily enough. Of course, everyone hid a little, running the risk that they might be found out and pay the price for it, which began with losing all you had and greeting the Oathsworn’s other true friend, pain.
Crowbone tried not to look at Mar, or the ruin of the Galgeddil lord’s face, fought to look smooth as a blue- glass cup as he turned away to bawl at Kaetilmund to leave off plundering and get to the ship.
He picked up the lord’s sword; it was a solid Frankish blade fitted with down-curved iron quillons and a fat three-lobed pommel above a braided leather grip. Basic and workmanlike, it was not the ornate sword of a little lordling, but one used by a fighting man; still a fearsomely expensive item all the same, since it had one purpose only and that was killing people. A luxury, then, to folk who used blades for chopping wood, or fish, or chickens. Beyond that, though, it was the mark of a warrior and increased in worth because of it; men without one watched Crowbone as he hefted it, hoping they had been noticed enough to warrant the gift of such a blade.
They tallied the losses as well as the gain — a man dead and four hurt, one almost certain to lose his hand. The dead man was curled on himself, skewered on a spear, the splintered haft showing ash so white it was almost too bright to look at. His face, half-turned to the last dying light he had ever seen, held only slack jawed astonishment that made him look stupid, which he had not been in life; Crowbone remembered him, shooting wit like arrows and laughing with the joy of what he was and who he was with.
‘Fastarr,’ said a voice and Crowbone turned to see Mar looking at the dead man. He pulled his helmet off, ran a hand through the sweat-damp iron tangle of his hair.
‘His name,’ he explained. ‘Fastarr, by-named Skumr. A boy we picked up in Jutland when we were the Red Brothers. Said he had seen fighting, but I did not believe him. He wanted to go far-faering, all the same, and was pleasant company.’
Crowbone stared. He had never heard his name and that shook him a little, for he knew it was an important matter to know the names of men prepared to die for you. He felt a jolt run through him, like a blow badly blocked, when he realised he had never spoken to this boy, whose by-name, Skumr, meant ‘brown gull’ and was a name given to one who chattered as noisily as that bird.
‘Well, now he is
Faring-lamed — a term used as a wry joke as much as a small comfort of words. Not dead, just
When Crowbone went to him, Kari was pale with blood-loss, cradling his smashed hand, which was wrapped in the tail of his own tunic. His sword hand, too. Crowbone offered him thanks and promised him wealth enough and then told him he was done with the Oathsworn and that he would be left on Mann when he found someone to stand in his stead, his oath fulfilled.
Crowbone turned from the stricken look on Kari’s face, knowing the man would have given the other hand to stay, but he was spared the awkwardness of argument by the arrival of Rovald, nursing his shoulder and spitting sand.
‘You have not had a good day of it,’ Crowbone pointed out and Rovald, knowing that he had failed to protect his jarl when he was bundled aside like old washing, flushed a little and went tight-lipped, which at least kept him from saying something stupidly dangerous.
Instead, he nodded to where a lone figure moved steadily towards them, almost seeming to glide because his feet were hidden by the flap of his long robe.
It was brave of this Domnall, Crowbone thought, to plooter through the gore-muddy sand towards snarlers filled with victory and blood-fire. He said as much aloud, so folk would get the point of it; the snarlers grinned their wolf grins, cleaned their clotted weapons in the sand, ignored the priest and hefted their dead and wounded off towards the Shadow.
‘You have slain the Lord Duegald,’ Domnall said and his face was pale. He clasped his hands together and bent his head to pray.
‘Once,’ he heard a voice say, ‘a Raven was overtaken by a Fox and caught. Raven said to Fox: “Please, pray first before you kill me, as the Christmann does.” This was the time when beasts had voices, you understand.’
Domnall, astonished, opened his eyes and stared at Crowbone, who stood with his legs slightly apart and his silly woman’s dress tucked up into his belt at the front, so that it looked as if he wore baggy, misshapen breeks. The priest saw that those odd-coloured eyes were dull, like misted beads.
‘Fox asked: “In what manner does he pray? Tell me.”
‘“He folds his hands in praying,” said Raven and Fox sat up and folded his paws as best he could, which meant letting go of Raven. “You ought not to look about you as you do. You had better shut your eyes,” added Raven and Fox did so. Raven flew away, screeching, into a high tree.
‘“Pray away, fool,” he said and Fox sat, speechless, because he had been outdone.’
Domnall stared. Crowbone blinked and shifted, then smiled at the priest.
‘Pray away, fool. When you open them, your prayers and your prey will both be gone and all this will be a dream.’
‘God is not mocked,’ Domnall said sternly and Crowbone laughed as he turned away, hefting his sword on to one shoulder.
‘Of course he is, priest,’ he called out as he went. ‘His son was sent to promise an end to wicked folk. Odin promised an end to the ice giants. I see no ice giants, priest — but the world is full of wicked men.’
Domnall could still hear the laughter as the swaggering youth reached the tideline and was hauled up the strakes of the Shadow by willing hands.
The embers whirling round their ears from the dying fires of the borg, the people of the White House crept
