Let this Wislaw drink up my magic for all I care, what is it to me?
‘The barrier has been raised and will protect us from the demon, but the cost was great. Piórun demanded much from my craft and now he asks but a little more, a life to bind the magic to him.’
‘We have never slaughtered our own,’ Grunmir said simply. ‘Animals, yes, but never has human blood graced our altars.’
‘Yet there are some amongst us who have. The Vikingar of the north give up the blood of women and men to their gods, and their power is strong. Never have we faced a crisis such as this, lord krol, never has the need been so urgent. Only blood will help stem the tide that rises against us, this girl’s blood.’
Still Iwa couldn’t speak, her lips held mute as she struggled to summon the craft to help break his spell. Not that she knew what she was doing. Somewhere deep within she felt the stirring of a power, but it was faint, distant. Desperately she tried to catch hold of it, guide it as she had done when she’d hidden in the owl’s mind. But Wislaw’s craft held firm and, try as she might, she couldn’t free her lips.
The priest is right, she wanted to say. Let Piórun have my blood, my body. Give me over to him. It took all her strength not to blurt the words out and fall before the great chair and offer herself as a sacrifice. Desperately she tried to keep back, the candled gloom folding over her, and always there was the presence of that doll. She felt it, a dark clawing sensation at the back of her mind.
No, she had to keep calm. She tried to close her eyes and think of Yaroslav, alone in the hut. She was his only hope now. Somehow she had to get to him. If only she could rid herself of the presence of that accursed doll. With a deep breath she tried to force the thing from her mind, but its power held firm and, behind the twisting of the ropes and the creak of the wood, she heard a dark half-human sound, as if the thing was somehow laughing at her.
‘Let the Vikingar keep to their own ways,’ the krol said calmly, ‘but they are not ours. The men will not take well to such a deed.’
‘The men will follow their leader. Do not stay your hand now, when the doom of us all hangs in the balance. Your clemency does you justice, noble krol, but a ruler knows when to be firm. The men will follow such a leader.’
There was a cold, clawing silence about the ship. Grunmir glanced around the woyaks. They were trusted men, the battle scars grown old on their faces. But still he was uncertain and Iwa caught the trace of fear that broke fleetingly across his face. She blinked her eyes in the stinging smoke and when she next opened them it was gone, though the krol’s features remained grave. She felt it too, that feeling of uncertainty that pressed down on the assembly. She had never joined the hunt, no girl or woman ever had, but she’d followed the herds well enough to know the mind of a pack.
Around her the woyaks shifted, hands tightening on their spears. They were ready to break. How many of them would continue to follow the krol? How many already looked to the old priest? Suddenly she realised what lay behind Grunmir’s hatred of Wislaw. The barrier had given him power. His words held sway and soon it would be Wislaw who would command.
From the braziers there was a splutter of flame. Alia stood uncertainly by the chair, her mind racked with calculation. She’d thrown her lot in with the krol and had gone too far to turn away. What was it about this girl? Why where they so interested in her? If only she’d had the good sense to stay in the forest. She would have been safe there, with the other hunters.
And part of her wished that she’d managed to escape that night. She could be with the hunters now. She felt her world upon a knife edge, as dark as the candles that spluttered in the gloom. She stood ready for the sign that she should pour more wine and bit her lip to hide her anger. Why did the girl always keep coming back?
‘Why worry over such a girl?’ she said, her words thin as she ran a finger over the silver rim of the jug. Perhaps she had felt safe, serving wine to the krol, her honeyed words soothing him in the night. Now a new power threatened from within, hungry, vengeful.
Perhaps when he has won, Wislaw will take Alia for himself. Iwa couldn’t help but glance over to where the old priest scowled. Somehow she doubted that Alia would find him such an appetising prospect.
‘The men demand…’ Wislaw began.
‘My men grow restless.’ The krol nodded in the direction of the woyaks. ‘Do not think I do not hear their words or that I cannot read their hearts. I know who curses behind my back, those who plot to escape. We need order.’
‘Order will come once this terror is over, lord krol.’ Wislaw was careful to choose his words. Even Iwa understood the threat that lay behind Krol Gawel’s speech. This krol is not such a dullard after all.
‘The barrier is strengthened,’ Wislaw continued, ‘given time.’
‘Time is one of the many things that we do not have.’ The krol flung the cup at the feet of the priest. The grip on Iwa’s shoulders tensed as it clattered to the ground. The krol still held sway here. She could feel the fear of the men as, above them, Krol Gawel glared. ‘Soon the crops must be planted, and Grunmir’s brave woyaks cower in their ships.’
‘They are woyaks,’ Grunmir said, ‘they understand only war
