out from hiding to stand at the side of Domnall the priest while the black ship unleashed itself from the land. The blood-red mourn of sail sped it away after the
SIX
The Witch-Queen’s Crew
The wind hissed out of the dark, thick with sea-salt and fear, for it was a raider’s wind, one that could drive dragon-ships straight down the throat of the town and folk huddled, seeing them out there in the dark. The three men moved closer to the flattening flames of the brazier; the youngest stared over his shoulder at the comfort of the gate they guarded.
‘A raw night,’ said a voice and men turned to stare at the cloaked man who limped up. The nearest to the visitor was an old man whose hair wisped like white smoke in the dark and he half-lowered the point of his suspicious spear a little. Next to him, a man with a timber leg struggled to get off the log he squatted on. The boy, his face bright with firelight, squinted at the newcomer, who was no more than a dark figure, blooded here and there by the flames.
Erling came up, slow and easy, then flourished a leather flask out from under the cloak and unstoppered it.
‘As well you have me, then, to take the chill off,’ he grunted and passed it over. ‘Thought you lot could use it. Done this meself an’ no-one cares, do they?’
The old man hesitated, then laid the spear down and took the flask, tilted it and swallowed.
‘You have the right of it friend,’ he said, hoarse with the spirit’s grip on his throat. He passed it to the timber- leg, who raised it in a grinning salute to Erling before swallowing.
‘You with the masons, then?’ asked the youth and Erling nodded.
‘If your lot would fix the yett,’ the old man grumbled, ‘we would be in the dry and warm.’
He got the flask back and held it a longer time at his lips before handing it back to Erling. He hefted it for a grinning moment, then handed it to the boy.
‘Your ma will flay you,’ the old man declared and the boy bristled.
‘Old enough to stand here with my arse frozen,’ he said, trying to be gruff. ‘Old enough to hold a spear.’
‘Aye, right enough,’ Timber-Leg added bitterly. ‘If the raiders come, old enough to die at this gate, too — so old enough to drink.’
‘They say the Witch-Queen’s son is out there,’ the old man added softly.
‘With some sort of shapechanger,’ the boy added, eyes moist and bright with drink that choked him and which he would not admit did just that. The course of it in his blood added to the raw thrill of stories brought back by Ogmund’s men.
‘They say he can kill in an eyeblink. Maelle saw it happen when Ulf died.’
Timber-Leg snorted.
‘Shapechanger my arse,’ he spat bitterly. ‘Not that one is needed here — all the good men are gone to Olaf’s army at Dyfflin, save for Ogmund. Him and a handful in a fortress with a broken gate. And us. Old, crippled and over-young — what are we likely to do against sea-raiders?’
‘Not much for your part,’ answered the boy scornfully, ‘but I have two good legs and can use a spear.’
‘Enough,’ snapped the old man angrily. ‘Ghile-beg here has seen fighting which you have not. It is more than likely that if the raiders come, you will not be dancing this time next year.’
He turned to Erling and seemed surprised to find the flask still in his hand. He raised it in toast and drank, then smacked his lips and scowled back at the boy.
‘No more for you. You are already at the moment when rudeness seems wit.’
Erling laughed and shook his head in mock sorrow.
‘If the Witch-Queen comes, with her son and the shapechanger,’ he declared, ‘it might be better to be gone away. But that is unlikely. After all — what would bring them to Holmtun that is worth the taking?’
The old man spat angrily in the flames.
‘Some prisoner,’ he declared. ‘Dragged into the borg to be put to the question by Ogmund.’
‘He should have taken him to Olaf in Dyfflin,’ Timber-Leg declared, ‘but wants to wave answers at the king and the jarl, to show his cleverness.’
‘Aye,’ said Erling, stretching a little so that the cloak slackened round his body. A shadow flitted like an owl in flight and only he noticed it. ‘This is as I had heard it and so it is a sore struggle of task you have, lads, and no mistake. You seem brave boys, all the same, and we have shared drink this night, so it is all a right pity.’
The old man held the flask up to his lips and realised it was empty as he lowered it.
‘Pity?’ he demanded owlishly, handing the empty flask back to Erling. ‘What is a pity — other than that this fine flask is empty?’
He handed the empty flask back to Erling, who took it with one hand and came up with the other full of bright, winking steel.
‘This is,’ he said and gave three quick, sharp blows into the old man’s ribs, catching the body close to him so that the shocked eyes, rheum-bright and bewildered stared into his own. The last breath tickled the hairs in Erling’s nose.
‘And he is,’ he added with a nod to Timber-Leg, holding the old man in the crook of one arm before letting him slide to the cobbles. Timber-Leg whirled as the dark figure spirited out of the blackness behind them; he had time to see an angel’s face, bloody with firelight, before a great scythe of light stole his sight forever.
The boy whimpered and backed away, the horror robbing his throat of sound. Od came out of the darkness towards him, his head cocked to one side like a bird studying a beetle. He waved the sword to make the boy twitch and dance.
‘Do not play with him,’ Erling ordered sharply and Od gave a little shrug and struck like an adder.
Erling whistled and now the dark spilled out men, Gudrod striding at their head over the unguarded raising- bridge, through the broken yett and over the three bodies and blood, into the borg of Holmtun.
In the deep of the place, Ogmund stood slick with sweat before the hanging figure of Hoskuld, the trader’s naked body dark with streaks of blood and shit. Ogmund was thinking he should have called Murchadh down to do the heavy work with the whip and hot iron. He did not like the burning feeling he had down one arm, nor the rasp when he tried to breathe — but the lure of winning for himself the information everyone sought was too strong. It was an advantage to have this place empty of fighting men save for his own ship’s crew.
Old, am I, he thought savagely and hefted the whip. He wondered if this trader had, as he claimed, told all he knew. A limping priest and a written message held by the monks — he glanced sideways at the document he’d had fetched from the monastery. The monks had squealed a bit at that, he had heard. The original had been sealed and marked for a Jarl Orm, as the trader had said — so that was real enough but might be anything, since Ogmund could not read it. He did not know of any jarl called Orm.
‘You have more to say,’ he crooned to the bloody dangle that was Hoskuld and took a deep breath as he raised the whip, wincing at the stitch in his side. ‘I will have it.’
There was a clattering on the stairs and he turned with annoyance; he wanted no-one around when the trader vomited up all he knew.
‘Murchadh, I told you …’
It was not Murchadh. It was the Witch-Queen’s son, with the terrible, beautiful youth behind him.
He had time only to discover how old and slow he truly was before the angelic youth blurred the life from him with a handful of bright steel, cold and silvered as a winter dawn.
Crowbone’s Crew
The sea Mann sits in is a black-souled, scawmy water that can turn vicious out of a clear blue sky. Like a woman with a smile, Stick-Starer said, who has one hand behind her back with an iron skillet in it and a deal of
