The Wolf Sea

5

The rain spattered on the loop of cloak over my head, washing down from the mountains the Goat Boy said were called Troodos. We had climbed out of sight of the sea now, away from the olive and carob trees, into the limestone crags and their scatterings of pines, stunted oaks and fine trees Sighvat thought were cedars. It was cool and clean and wet here as we waited for the scouts to come back.

`Monastery fall down,' the Goat Boy had said, proud of the Norse he had put together, pointing ahead and shivering in his ragged tunic, even though Finn had given him a spare cloak which he had wrapped himself in until he was nearly lost. To us, though, the day was mild and Finn came stumping up to us booming: 'Almost like home,' and ruffling the Goat Boy's mass of black curls.

He had presented the Goat Boy and his brother to us, twin prows from the same boat it appeared, both dark-haired, olive-skinned and black-eyed. One was older, he told us proudly, being nine while his brother was merely eight.

Their mother, a plump woman swathed in black and grinning behind a hand to hide her lack of teeth, had carried water and food to the Danes for five years and was now, with others in the town, taking in our clothing to be washed and repaired. The Danes went in ones and twos to the bath-house and came back clean and combed. Then they had their hair and beards trimmed from five years of tangle — the most vain of all the Norse were the Danes.

Finn had taken a liking to the Goat Boys, white-toothed grinning little dogs who followed him around since they had come begging for washing work, their father being dead from fever some years now.

`They have some Arab in them, then,' I grunted to Brother John, when he told me they were rattling away in that tongue.

`Their mother certainly had,' chuckled Finn and curled his own moustaches, for he had an interest there, I was thinking, and her lack of teeth was a small matter to a man long at sea.

The hafskip was brought round under the stern eye of Balantes and duly turned over — though I saw he had stationed two dromon ships, light galleys with catapults on them, out at the harbour mouth, just in case we did something stupid, like try to run.

Gizur went aboard, with a Dane called Hrolf who had some skill with ship-wood and the rest of the Danes gathered in a huddle on the beach, looking and breathing in the distant pine and tar scent of her.

One, called Svarvar, told me its name was Aifur, Ferocious, and I asked if the Danes would care if we called it the Fjord Elk, which was the name the Oathsworn gave every ship they sailed on — even though, it seemed to me, we did not tend to have them long.

Svarvar said he would talk to them and I said I would call a Thing for it and we could all decide. Svarvar I liked, for he had come round to the new way of things swiftly and laughed a lot, even at his own misfortunes and the delight people took in them.

He had worked for a moneyer in Jorvik when he was a lad, ten years or so ago, apprentice die-maker to one Frothric, who minted coins for the young King Eadwig.

`But I never had the skill of it,' he confessed to his delighted audience. 'And then I made a good die, by my way of thinking, a skilled bit of work, with Eadwig Rex and the cross on one side and the name of Frothric on the other. But while the King's name was perfect, Frothric's side was upside down and able to be read only in a polished surface.'

Everyone chuckled at that and howled and slapped their legs when he added that Frothric had stamped the die on lead to test it, then thrown it out into the street in a fury — and Svarvar himself shortly after.

`So I decided skilled work was not for me and went viking that summer. Never stopped,' he added.

The new Fjord Elk was declared fit enough to take to sea, though its sail, having been flake-stowed on the yard for five years, needed considerable work and much of the tackle and lines needed replacing.

So I said that Radoslav, Kvasir, Gizur, Short Eldgrim and six of the Danes should stay behind, to guard and fix both ships, then showed the Goat Boys two silver pieces, minted in the Great City, one for each. One would come with us as guide and the other would stay. If there was trouble, he would bring news of it and Short Eldgrim would carve the runes of it on a stick, so that only Northmen could read it.

I will go,' declared the eldest, striking his chest proudly with a hand red-scarred by harsh work. 'But I will need a sword and a shield. And possibly a helmet.'

Finn chuckled, gave him all three items from his own person and watched him wilt under the weight. 'A good coat of rings as well, brave Baldur?' He smiled, then tapped the top of the helmet which was swallowing the boy's head and asked if there was anyone in there. He took it off, ruffled the boy's hair and said: 'Stick to your sling, I am thinking.'

The Goat Boy laughed and handed the battle-gear back, glad to be rid of it. I realised I could not keep calling him the Goat Boy and asked his name.

Finn groaned. 'You should not have done that, Trader,' he said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. 'We may as well all take a seat.'

The boy took a deep breath and threw out a proud little chest. 'John Doukas Angelos Palaiologos Raoul Laskaris Tornikes Philanthropenos Asanes,' he intoned and beamed. No one spoke and Finn was grinning.

`His name is bigger than he is,' I noted. 'I think I preferred Goat Boy. I will not make the mistake of asking your brother the same question.'

`His name is Vlasios,' answered the boy, then stared, bemused and angry, as everyone roared with laughter.

Then, with spears and round shields and leather helmets sent out by Tagardis, the rest of the Danes lined up with my old crew and we headed off, laden with waterskins and dried meat and bread, into the depths of the island, on the day it started to rain.

Three days later, neither it nor the cold wind that brought it showed signs of stopping and we were high in the hills, having circled round to the east. We were now close to Kato Lefkara and the bigger town of Lefkara, which was said to be Farouk's stronghold, and the rain was a mirr that you had to wipe off your face and eyelashes. Yet the day was warm enough to make us all sweat in our battle-gear.

Those whose turn it was to carry the heavy sacks I had ordered brought along grumbled twice as much, but no one was happy about being soaked inside and out.

The scouts came in from three different directions. They were all Danes, for none of the original dozen Oathsworn had the skill of hunting or tracking much. These three did and the best of them was Halfred, who had spoken up against Thrain. Hookeye, they called him, since his left one was hooked tight to his nose -

yet, squint or no, he read signs and tracks as easily as monks scan Latin.

He came in with the easy, ground-breaking lope of a seasoned tracker, which he had been for Knud, whose hov was in Limfjord. Knud was known the length of Denmark as a greedy man and made his wealth dealing in slaves, Ests and Livs from further up the Baltic, which he sold to traders bound for Dyfflin and Jorvik.

It had been his job, Halfred Hookeye told us, to track down the runaways and, since Knud skimped on proper securing, Halfred had been kept busy until he grew restless for other things. That set him apart from the others, since no one liked a hunter of runaway men, even thralls.

I was glad of Knud's stinginess now, for Halfred Hookeye could read ground like my father once read wind and current — like those old, Oathsworn scout-hounds, Bagnose and Steinthor, once did, before Odin gathered them to Valholl.

One of those domed Christ places, Trader,' Hookeye said, addressing me as he had heard Finn and others do — which was a good sign. 'Ruined, like the Goat Boy says.'

It is called a church,' sighed Brother John. 'How many times must I tell you?'

Two Danish trackers, Gardi and Hedin Flayer, kneeling and blowing snot through their fingers, reported that they had seen nothing else but rain and stones and distant hills.

`There is not a living creature here,' Hedin Flayer said morosely, 'though I saw goat droppings, so something lives in this Christ-cursed country.' And, like the good Christ-man he was, he said sorry to a bedraggled Brother John and crossed himself while making a good Odin-ward against evil at the same time.

We moved up warily to the domed church, as silently as nearly three-score Norse could move with battle-gear, which wasn't very.

We crested a bald hillock, descended a scrub slope, then crossed a swollen stream and climbed up the other side to where the church stood — or three blackened walls of it and the dome, partially collapsed on one side. The sun was white and distant and threw no shadows; there was the faint stink of charred wood over the smell of damp earth — and something else, faint and sweet as mead-sick.

`Heya,' grunted Arnor, pinching the scabbed cleft of his nose. 'The dead are here.'

They were, too, and now that I was looking for them, it was as if a doe in a dappled wood had suddenly moved and showed all.

The dead lay everywhere, slumped and sunken like empty waterskins, the grass grown up through them.

I saw the tattered remains of worn robes, the yellow of bone and, when Gardi pulled at what he thought was a brown stick, he dragged out a bone, attached to a maggot-crusted brown mass that released a waft of stinging stink to make eyes water.

Cautiously, we wandered through the place, which had been gutted and burned. I posted watchers at once, even though the signs were months old. Brother John knelt and prayed, while the others poked and prodded in the ruins. The rain slid down again: a delicate offering, like tears.

`Strange place,' muttered Sighvat, 'even allowing for it being a Christ house. I have seen those — so have you, Trader — but this is different. Why have they all these wheels?'

Now that he had spoken of it, I saw what he meant. There were the remains of shattered and burned wood, bits of metal and, everywhere, charred wheels and bits of spoke. As he said, even allowing for the strangeness of the Greek Christ-men, this was new.

`Perhaps the Goat Boy knows,' I said, but Sighvat wasn't listening. He was staring at the sky and, when I looked up, I saw the small, circling black shapes.

`Crows?' I asked, for his eyes were sharp as needles and I couldn't see which way they were wheeling -

crows were left-handed, as Sighvat constantly told us.

He shook his head. 'Kites. Loki birds and treacherous. They will tell our enemies where we are, for they have smelled the old death unearthed here and think they can make new ones to scavenge.'

He shivered and that raised my hackles, for Sighvat was always sure with animals and birds. When I said so, he turned a grim face on me and shrugged. 'My mother said I would find my doom when the kite spoke to me. She had that off a volva from the next valley,' he said.

`Can kites talk, then?' I asked. 'I have been told crows can.'

`Neither has a voice,' Sighvat corrected morosely and shrugged again. 'There are many ways of speaking.'

`Getting darker, Bear Slayer,' announced Hookeye. 'We should move.'

Bear Slayer. He had been listening to the campfire tales and clearly liked how I had been found beside the body of a great white bear from the North, a spear up through its chin. I had not killed it, though no one knew that save me, but it was not a name I preferred. It was one of those names that made fame-starved warriors with scarred faces scowl, as if you'd just challenged them to a pissing contest.

I looked again at the sky, which was pearl-grey and empty save for the distant kites. I knew we had water and shelter here, but the violent dead made it an uncomfortable place to be near at night.

Turning, I signalled to move on, indicating that the scouts should move out ahead. Then I saw Brother John, his arm round the Goat Boy, crooning soothingly. The Goat Boy shuddered in spasms and turned his snot-smeared face to me, twisted in a grief so hard on him that he could barely make a noise with his weeping.

`His friends,' Brother John said and swept a hand at a litter of corpses.

I looked closer. They were all small, ruined little rag bundles of bone and weather-wrecked cloth.

Children. Scores of them.

`This is a silk factory,' Brother John said. 'John Asanes here once laboured for them on these wheels, teasing silk from cocoons — all the silk-teasers are boys — but fled because his hands hurt too much from the boiling water they use. He has never been back until now, but had heard the monastery had been attacked by this Farouk. That's why he wanted to come.' He paused and patted the boy's shoulder. 'He thought he would be coming with an army to rescue them all, like some hero. He wasn't expecting this, I am after thinking. All dead. Ah well, lad — consumpsit vires fortuna nocendo.'

I doubted whether the Norns had exhausted their power of hurting. Those three sisters, I had found, were infinite in their capacity to inflict pain on the world of men. The Goat Boy certainly didn't believe it, for he was blubbering on his knees, then sank full length, shoulders heaving.

`Qui facet in terra, non habet unde cadat,' intoned Brother John.

If one lies on the ground, one can fall no further. There was truth in it but no help for the lad.

`Get him up, we are moving,' I said, harder than I intended, the stink of all those little deaths sharp in my nose. Brother John bent and tugged at the heaving shoulders, teasing the Goat Boy upright with soothings and croons and we moved away from that dead place.

An hour later, Gardi trotted back to us with news of a farm ahead and another stream beside it, just as the wind grew colder and the dark slid in like black water. 'There are dead there, too,' he added, which made my heart sink, for we could go no further now and had, it seemed, changed one field of corpses for another.

The farm was a huddle of ruins, but the outbuildings had suffered most, being almost all made of gnarled wood culled from the stunted pines. The main building had lost its roof, but the thick walls were intact, though blackened. Surrounding it were smoothed fields and what I had taken at first to be olive groves, but these were different trees, skeletal in the dusk. There were also the remains of splintered and burned wooden frames, like racks used to smoke herring in quantity, except that these were not slatted, but solid trays.

Finn turned a dry corpse over with a foot, a hissing rustle ending in a cracking sound as the shafts of two rotted arrows crumbled. 'Two dead here, no more. I think the others probably fled to the church, thinking it safer,' he muttered. He made a sign against any lurking fetch and I told Brother John to lay their Christ fetches to rest, just in case, for we had no choice but to spend the night here.

We had a fire, though I did not like the idea of it and weighed it against the hunched, pinch-faced fears of the crew, who did not like the idea of sitting in the dark beside strange dead and wandering fetches.

The flames chased out the dark and the fear. Hot food helped; after an hour there was even banter.

I moved to one side, staring out at the trees and trying to work out what this place had farmed, but could not. I wanted to ask the Goat Boy, but he was sleeping, exhausted by grief, and I had not the heart to wake him.

Finn appeared beside me, picking his teeth. He jerked his head back at the fire and grinned. 'We are almost one crew now, Trader,' he said, 'and a good fight will caulk the seams of it, I am thinking.'

`There won't be a long wait for such a caulking,' I replied and after that we were silent, gloomy — until Arnor started a riddle contest with one about mead which every child learns before they can walk.

`That had moss on it when I was a boy,' thundered Finn, heading towards the fire. 'You gowk, you incompetent. How dare you sit there with a nose shaped like your arse and present us with riddles so poor.'

Arnor, shamefaced and blinking, had no reply, but Vagn, a Dane they called Kleggi — Horsefly — for his stinging wit, had one ready.

`What cuts but does not kill?' he demanded, which set everyone looking at his neighbour and scratching.

`Finn's tongue,' said Kleggi triumphantly and everyone roared appreciation.

`Better, better,' said Finn amiably, shoving someone up to get a seat by the fire. 'Any more like that, little arse-biter?'

I listened to them, remembering how Einar had sat in silence, part and yet apart. Did he feel as I felt now? I slid down the wall and leaned my head back, feeling the faint heat of the flames, hearing the voices and laughter round the fire. The sword burned the back of my eyelids when I closed them. The Rune Serpent, dancing just out of reach.

A wind touched my cheek, a tendril of salt in it from a dream sea, and I lay back on the tussocked grass of Bjornshafen, where the gulls wheeled and the wrack blistered in a summer sun on sand and shingle.

Somewhere, a horse whinnied and I could see it, a grey with a flea-bitten back, curling back its top lip to taste the scent of a mare. .

In the dark, a rhythmic clanging and a blaze of sparks, each one flaring, for that brief instance, the red-glowed shape of a man, naked from the waist up and sweat-gleamed, a powerful arm rising and falling, bringing the hammer down on a glowing bar on the anvil.

It looked like Thor. I thought it was, but his face had high cheekbones, almond eyes like slits. A Finn. Was the Thunderer a Finn, then? No, not a Finn. A Volsung, who were all Odin's children, descended from him and able to shapechange as a result. I had forgotten that until now.

A shape changed the darkness beside me, too shadowed to make out, but I knew, somehow, that it was Einar, could see him standing beside me even without turning, the hanging wings of his hair like black smoke on either side of his head.

I killed you,' I said and then:

`You deserved it, though.'

I thought you were my doom,' he answered, 'and so it proved.'

`You killed my father,' I pointed out.

There was silence.

Is it true that Valholl is made from battle shields and the roof from spears?' I asked.

`How would I know? I cannot cross Bifrost — I broke an Odin-oath, made on Gungnir,' he replied, and half turned, so that the shadow of his face was broken by the gleam of one eye. 'Until that is braided up anew, I am lost,' he added, in a voice that trailed off to a whisper.

I said nothing, for I had the notion he meant for me to fix it and I had no idea how.

The clanging went on without pause and he raised one hand — firm and strong, I saw, as it had once been. I even saw the scars on his knuckles, the marks all swordsmen get at play and practice.

`He did not make this for Starkad,' he said, pointing at the smith. In the dark, the serpent of runes curled along the sabre's blade, red-dyed in the forge glow.

`For Atil,' I said, confused that he should not know this, he of all people who now sat on that lord's throne.

`He is dead,' Einar replied. 'Your hand grips it now. You need to get it back.'

I felt him fade, the clanging of the hammer growing louder and louder.

`What is death like?' I wanted to know, almost desperately. `Long,' he replied and was gone.

The thunderous clanging tore me back to the ruined room and the embers of the fire. Men were spilling up and out of the building, to where Hookeye, last man on watch for the night, rang a spearhead on a rusted iron wheel-rim. Those with byrnies struggled them over their heads.

`What the fuck-?' demanded Finn, a question chorused by everyone, bleary-eyed but weapons up and ready. Hookeye merely pointed.

On the hillside beyond, almost like the grey-green scrub they stood against, a dozen horsemen sat and watched us.

`They just appeared,' Hookeye said. 'At first light.'

`Form,' I told them and they obediently moved into a solid block, mailed men to the front, shields up.

The horsemen moved down, fluid riders who took the wet scree slope with ease. In their lead, a black-turbaned man did it with his hands held out clear of his sides, to show he was unarmed and wanted to talk.

The horsemen were well mounted and a chill went through me at the sight of them as they came closer still, until Black Turban was no more than a few paces away.

The horse was large and powerful and he sat it easily. He had a cased bow, wickedly curved. A quiver was strapped to his left hip, angled backwards and cut deep to show the shafts of the arrows, which would, I saw, make it faster to get them out.

He had a sword on the other side — not a curved sabre, but one that was almost straight. From the saddle hung an axe and a mace with a strange animal head and, dangling from the strap, a conical helm with a mail aventail tucked neatly inside it.

He wore mail and had proper padding beneath it, but no protection other than fat trousers of some fine black linen on his legs — so slash at their knees, I noted. He had a shield, small and round and metal-fronted, and the horse was barded in leather made to look like leaves and covered in fat tassels of coloured wool and gilded medallions. A black cloak hung almost all the way over his back and the horse's rump.

And they were all like this, save that the others also had long lances.

We stood in silence, each weighing the other. He had the dark skin of the Blue Men from the southern deserts, a close-cropped, neatly trimmed black beard and eyes like chips of jet. I called out to the Goat Boy to translate this Arab's tongue to Greek, for Brother John confessed he actually knew only a few words of it -

which got him hard looks from me after all his boasting.

The Goat Boy stood, trembling like a whipped dog under my hand on his shoulder as the Arab spoke.

I am Faysal ibn Sadiq,' he announced. 'Who trespasses on the lands of the Emir Farouk?'

I am Orm Ruriksson,' I replied, hoping my voice was not pitched too high or trembled. 'I was told these lands belong to the Emperor in the Great City.'

The Goat Boy said it all and Faysal's eyes widened a little. `You are a beardless boy.'

I rubbed my chin, which had some fine hairs on it — but inclined my head in acknowledgement and smiled ingratiatingly. Does no harm. .

Faysal made a dismissive gesture. 'We were masters here before the Greeklings,' he declared haughtily.

'And know no others above us. Why are you here?'

`We seek the temple of the Archangel Michael in Kato Lefkara,' I told him. 'To worship there and speak with the holy men.'

He looked us up and down and then said something that the Goat Boy hesitated over. I nudged him and he looked miserably up at me.

`He says he has heard of the men from the northlands and that they are not followers of the Christ but are idol-worshipping sons of dogs,' the Goat Boy blurted. 'He says that-' He stopped, licking his lips.

I nudged him again, feeling cold fear creep into my belly and curl up there.

`He says that you and your pig-eating friends can go somewhere else and fuck boys, but not to defile the lands of the great Emir, Protector of the Faithful. . forgive me, Lord Orm, but that is what he says.

I squeezed his shoulder to shut him up, then looked into Faysal's black eyes. Behind me, there were mutters and growls from the eavesdropping Danes, who had learned good Greek in five years of breaking rocks.

`Tell him,' I said, 'that we are the Oathsworn, bringers of a sword age, an axe age, a fire age to his miserable life. Tell him that we will go to where we intend and if he stands in our way I will kill all his men and then make him walk round a pole fastened to his entrails until he winds himself to death.'

The Goat Boy, his eyes wide, stammered his way through all that while I tried to stop my legs from shaking and offered a wry thanks to Starkad, who had brought that terror to my attention.

The black eyes flashed and Faysal stiffened in the saddle. Then he rattled off a fierce stream at the Goat Boy, who turned to me. Before he could translate, I raised my hands and silenced him.

`Tell this goat-humping dog rider to piss off. I have no more time to waste on him. Either he fights, or shows us how he squats like a woman. His choice.'

I waited long enough for the Goat Boy to say all this, then spun him by the shoulder and walked back to the grim-faced shieldwall, where men growled their appreciation and banged weapons on their shields.

`What happened? What did he say? What did you say?' Finn was chewing his shield edge with frustration.

Beside him, Sighvat chuckled and said: 'You should have learned more Greek than how to get a hump and a drink.'

I gave my orders, for I knew the dozen we had seen were not all of them. I was right. As we trotted back from the buildings and cut into the neat groves of stunted trees, the hillside sprouted more horsemen. And more.

I cursed our Odin luck and the Greeks. A hundred or so, Balantes had said. What he had not said was that they had heavy horse, leaving me to imagine some bunch of robed ragbreeks with spears and shields and not much else.

We formed up in the grove while the horsemen piled up and began shrilling out cries, which sounded like illa-la-laakba'.

`Trader,' Finn growled, 'we are too open here and these trees are in neat lines they can gallop straight down. We should have stayed by the buildings. They might not charge then.'

But I wanted them to charge. I wanted them angry and confident against a boy who had picked what seemed a bad position. I wanted Faysal to ride us down like the dogs we were, rather than be cautious and use bows.

I said as much to Finn while sending men out with the heavy sacks they had carried and my instructions.

He hissed through his teeth when it was all unveiled for him.

`Heya. Deep Thinker. If we live through this, it will make you famous.'

I am famous,' I said loudly enough for them all to hear. I am the Bear Slayer.'

This was the price of the jarl torc — boasts and standing in the middle of the front rank of the Lost. It had the effect, of course. The Oathsworn pounded their shields and hoomed deep in their throats, which even made the horsemen stop their la-las for a moment. Then they began again and there was a surge of movement, like a landslip down the hill.

`Form!' I yelled and ducked into the front rank. `Shieldwall. Form.'

The shields came up, ragged but solid, a ripple of sound as they interlocked and weapons thumped.

Behind me, the tip of a spear slid, winking in the dawn light, one on either side of my head. At the last moment, they would thrust forward, so that we in front sheltered under a hedge of points, protecting the unarmoured men with our ringmail bodies.

The ground trembled. Little stones in front of us danced like peas on a drumskin and the shrill screams grew louder. I needed to piss and my legs trembled, but I hoped that was just the ground shaking.

`Hold,' roared Finn. 'Stand hard as a dyke. . '

They hit the claw-like trees, filtering into the neat lanes between them. White mulberry trees, I learned later, for feeding the silkworms this farm had made for the nearby church-factory.

They were thundering up the lanes now, no more than two or three abreast, holding their great lances two-handed over their heads, or low at the hip. I saw Faysal, helmeted now and in the lead, knew he was trying to single me out, but he was two lanes down and would have to crash through the stiff-branched trees and across his own charging men to do it.

They were almost on us. I heard men behind me roaring defiance, felt them brace, saw the spears slide out. . then the leading horsemen hit the raven claws, a deadly sowing.

The whole formation cracked apart. Horses shrilled, broke stride, tripped and crashed to the ground, bringing others behind crashing over. An entire horse and rider ploughed forward, the animal flailing and screaming in a bow wave of stones and dirt, into the hedge of spears to my left, which stabbed viciously at the rider. He died in gurgles and had to be shaken off like lamb from a skewer.

Mulberry trees splintered; men struggled and fought to free themselves from those piling into them from behind. The rear ranks — pitifully few now — managed to wheel round and turn back, where they circled in confusion.

I led the front ranks of the Oathsworn forward in a steady walk, where they stabbed and hacked at the horsemen, shields up, leaving most of the killing to the ones behind. One of our men yelped, having stood on one of the three-pronged raven feet, which was a timely reminder to everyone else. I saw someone spear a man and then work the weapon free, a foot on the corpse's chest.

Hooves smacked my shield, knocking me sideways, and someone axed the fallen animal's skull to stop it kicking. Another scrambled up, screaming, tripping on its blue-pink entrails and a man heaved from the pile, coughing blood. He had time to look up and see my watered blade steal his life with a stroke.

Most were already dead, crushed in a great pile of men and horses so high we had to climb up it to get to the ones beyond.

Arrows whicked now, for the survivors had sorted themselves out and had thought what to do, but there was no fight in them — half their number were dead or struggling in the heap. I had the front rank shield those behind while they slaughtered the ones left alive in that pile.

Eventually, the Sarakenoi rode off, no longer shrilling their la-las. The crew gave a great cheer and beat on their shields and the Goat Boy was dancing up and down, pausing now and then to fit a stone in his sling and fling it at the retreating backs. If he hit one, it made no difference.

Finn came up, wiping sweat and blood from his face, and clapped me on the back. 'That showed the goat-humpers — and only two of ours dead and a few more scratched. Odin's hairy balls, young Orm, you are a deep thinker for war right enough.'

The rest of them agreed, after they had looted the dead. Horses still kicked and screeched, a high, thin sound that bothered us more than the moans of men. Those animals we killed, fast and hard, and the few which had surfaced from the carnage and stood, trembling and shaking, we gathered up and soothed, for we could use them.

There were thirty-four dead cavalrymen and almost as many horses I offered silent thanks to Tyr One

–

Hand, the old god of war, for the idea of bringing those raven talons from Patmos.

Brother John tended the wounded, none serious — and only two dead. One was a Dane whose name I did not know. The other was Arnor. One of those dying, sliding horsemen had held on to his lance and it had skewered Arnor through the bridge of his butchered nose, for he had hammered up the nasal of his helmet to keep it from rubbing on the wound.

`He never had any luck with that smeller,' Sighvat said gloomily.

They found Faysal for me, six down in a heap, the life flung from him and the shock of it left on his face in a snarl and a thin trail of blood from the corner of his mouth. His. neck was snapped and his head was turned so that it seemed he looked over his own shoulder at what had been his life to that point. The Goat Boy spat on him and then gave him a kick.

I let them loot for a while, but they were experienced raiders and knew the value of speed and that it was pointless trying to strip heavy armour and weapons to carry. While they searched for coin and ornaments, Brother John and I began stacking wood from the ruined buildings round the deepest heap of corpses until others noticed and were shamed into helping.

Then we placed Arnor and the Dane on top of the pile, his harpoon clutched to his breast, and burned them all, which was the old way, the East Norse way and, some said, better than a boat-grave. I found a mulberry leaf in Arnor's mouth when I sorted him out for burial and could not bear to throw it away. I have it still.

We left the place shortly afterwards, putting the wounded who could not walk on three horses, the two remaining heavy sacks of raven feet slung on another. We moved faster now, almost trotting towards where the Goat Boy said the village of Kato Lefkara was, until only that greasy plume of pyre smoke marked where we had been.

That and the treacherous, swooping Loki kites. I shivered, almost believing that Sighvat was right about them having arranged this feast.

The Goat Boy sat and watched me the way a cat does, unblinking, so that you can feel the eyes on you even when you are not looking.

We were all crouched in the lee of a slope, sheltered by a stand of pines. Water slid over stones in a quiet chuckle and everyone chewed cold mutton and flatbread and spoke in grunts if they spoke at all.

`Brother John says you believe in strange gods,' said the Goat Boy in his stream-clear voice. 'Are you a heathen, then?'

I looked at him and felt immeasurably old. Two years ago I had been much as he was now, knowing nothing and priding myself on the courage to cull bird eggs from sheer cliffs, or sit cross-legged on the rump of my foster-father Gudleif's sparkiest fighting stallion in its stall.

Now here I was, on a bare, damp hillside somewhere on an island somewhere in the Middle Sea, the jarl torc dragging at my neck, dead men's faces filling my dreams, chasing a runed blade and the secret of a hoard of silver.

Are you?' I countered.

`No! I am a good Christian,' he said indignantly. 'I believe in God.' Nearby, Brother John nodded appreciatively. Encouraged, the Goat Boy added: 'But you believe in lots of false gods, Brother John says.'

'Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt,' I said and Brother John coughed and grinned, though the Goat Boy did not understand.

`Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish,' I translated. I did not know who had first said it, but he had a Norse head on his shoulders. The Goat Boy was none the wiser. Anyway,' I added, 'once the Greeks had lots of gods, too.'

`The monks in Larnaca said we lived in fear of them until we saw the light,' the boy said sombrely.

Brother John chuckled. 'The truth is, young John, that those gods feared us, envied us, for they could not die. Without the threat of death, how can you feel the joy of life?'

Unlike our gods,' I added, 'who know they will all die one day, to make a greater life for all afterwards.

That's why All-Father Odin is so grim.'

The Goat Boy looked from me to Brother John and back. `But isn't that what the church teaches us about Christ, Brother John?'

`Just so,' Brother John agreed and the Goat Boy's brow wrinkled with confusion, until Finn slid over in a scrabble of stones and shoved goat cheese and bread at him.

`Give it up, biarki,' he growled, scowling at the pair of us. `Talking about gods just makes your head hurt.'

They sidled away together and Brother John laughed softly again. 'I don't think we enlightened that little bear,' he offered, then looked at me sideways. 'All the same, I thought you had found God, young Orm.'

I have heard many rumours,' I replied flatly, 'but I have never met the man.'

Brother John pursed his lips. 'You are growing darker,' he said seriously. 'And your dreams are blacker still. Careful you do not fall into the Abyss, Orm, for you will be lost there.'

I was saved a reply by the return of Hedin Flayer and Halfred Hookeye, who had been scouting over the other side of the ridge, looking at the huddle of houses that was Kato Lefkara.

`There are armed men there,' Hedin reported, 'maybe fifty, with shields and spears and blades, too, but no armour and only black turbans on their heads. But they have bows, Bear Slayer, and can pick us off as we cross the open ground.'

`Horsemen?'

Hookeye shook his head. 'Nor any sign. The ones who fought us did not come here.'

I did not think they would. They would have ridden straight to Farouk, to tell him what had happened and now he would be riding here, for some of those riders would have heard me say this was our destination.

I looked at the darkening sky.

`There are people there, too,' Hedin said, sucking shreds of goat to try and soften it enough to chew.

Of course there are. It is a village,' Finn growled, but Hedin shook his head.

`Children and women, with cloths covering their faces. That's not Greek, is it?'

No, it was a Serkland thing. Of course this Farouk wasn't a simple robber, he was one of the lords who had been told by the Miklagard Emperor to quit Cyprus and had decided to stay and fight, and had all his people with him. Now he had a town and a couple of villages and was a real threat.

`We will hit them at last light,' I said, `so that they will find it hard to use their bows. All we have to do is get to the church and find this thing Balantes wants. Then we get out and away.'

Are we stealing it then?' Hookeye asked and even some of his own oarmates chuckled.

`That's what we do, you arse,' answered Hedin Flayer, punching him on the arm.

I left them to chew on it, for I had another problem — what to do with the badly wounded. One was already shaking with wound-fever and the other was hamstrung, would never walk properly again, though he could still sit a horse.

The fevered one was an old oarmate called Ofeig, the one who had stepped on the raven claw, I realised.

Such a simple little wound, a nithing cut that had come to this in half a day, no more. There was, then, some poison there and I made a mental note to warn the men who scattered them to take more care, then felt ashamed for reeling with future plans while a good man lay dying.

Brother John sat with him, placing damp cloths on his forehead and muttering his healing chants, crossing himself and clasping his hands. 'I pray to Earth and High Heaven, the sun and St Mary and Lord God himself, that he grant me medicinal hands and healing tongue to heal Ofeig of the shivering disease.

From back and from breast, from body and from limb, from eyes and from ears, from wherever evil can enter him. .

It wasn't about to make a hacksilver of difference. Finn knelt on the other side and Ofeig opened his eyes and grinned weakly, while the sweat oozed from him like water from a ripe cheese.

I had expected a prettier Valkyrie,' he said, knowing well what was coming.

Finn nodded soberly. No Valkyries were pretty, we knew. They came riding wolves to heave the chosen dead away, savage and merciless — but there was a time for gentle lying.

`There is one waiting,' he said in a voice as soft as any new lamb. 'She has hair the colour of red-gold, breasts like pillows, eyes only for you and wonders what is taking you so long.'

His great, calloused hand closed over the brow of Ofeig, who stiffened — then a fresh spasm of shivering took him.

`Fair journey, Ofeig,' said Finn and his other hand stroked the razor edge across Ofeig's throat, then held him down, the blood spreading slowly over his chest, bubbling in spurts like a hot spring as he choked and died, congealing like thick gruel.

After a while, Finn straightened, wiping first his hands, then the blade — the one I had given him, that he had called the Priest — on Ofeig's breeks. He looked at me over the dead eyes. 'Next time, you do it,' he said and I was ashamed, remembering how Einar had done it when he lived. It was a jarl-task right enough.

`You can piss off coming for me,' growled Sumarlidi, the one with the cut hamstring, hauling himself to a sitting posture and jerking out his scramseax. 'I have one good leg left and after that I can still crawl.'

`Then crawl to your horse and get on it,' I snapped at him, and get ready to ride hard.'

`Hop to it,' added Finn and wheezed with laughter.

We huddled just under the brow of the ridge, so that if I raised my head only a little, I could see the silhouette of buildings, the dominating dome of the church of the Archangel Michael and the yellow glow of lights and fires, which only made the chill of the night wind colder and the dark blacker than ever.

When the leprous moon started to cast a shadow in between the shrouds of dark cloud, I gave a signal and the men rose up to a crouch and started to filter down the hill, scuttling like beetles. The scuff and clink of them made me wince, certain someone would hear it, but no alarm was sounded, and then we were crossing the first of the rickety fences, into the garden plots behind some houses.

Finn turned to grin at me and I saw he had his Roman nail in his teeth, one of the metal spikes he had used to mark out the holmgang, which he gnawed like a dog with a bone. His teeth ground down on it, preventing him from bursting into full-throated roar until I gave the signal. Slaver dripped from it as I nodded.

He spat the nail into his hand and threw back his head, howling like a mad wolf. The cry went up from all our throats, then we lurched forward into the houses.

I trotted forward, heading for the church, hearing the panicked screams and shrieks as the Oathsworn ripped through the village. I passed some huts and houses, heard doors crack under axes, the thump of booted feet and screams. A robed figure skidded round the side of a building, slammed into a mud wall, looking back over his shoulder. Then he turned, saw me and ran back the way he had come, straight into a skewering spear.

A woman screamed and, through the door, I saw her flung to the ground, two men frantically fumbling down their breeches and I cursed. It would be the Danes, who hadn't tasted that sweetness in five years. I should have planned for that.

I trotted across the square, saw Finn and yelled to him. Sighvat burst out of a building, saw me and ran across, laughing. Hookeye appeared, an arrow nocked and his bow straining. He grinned in a wolfish way and looked like he had been caught with his hand in my purse for a moment, then shrugged. The four of us headed for the dark entrance to the church, a narrow way only one man wide.

It was far too late, for the smart ones had already gone in and barred the door and the church had been designed as a refuge. The narrow entrance was a passage, which sloped down, then up to a stout door, making a ram impossible to use. On the roof above, I saw holes and barely jumped aside as a spearhead thrust down, then back, like the tongue of a snake.

Keeping to the sides, we slid up, studied the door, then slithered our backs down the wall to the entrance and out. I wandered to the middle of the village square, to a well surrounded by a series of water troughs, stopped and sat down, resting my shield on my knees and my sword on one shoulder, listening to the shrieks and screams, seeing the figures flit like dark bats. Then there was the bright flare of flame and a roof collapsed.

Finn growled and I wearily nodded. He trotted off, dragging Hookeye with him, who seemed inclined to stay near me, yelling at them to put the fire out or he would tear their arms off and beat out the flames with the wet ends.

It's a fortress, that gods-cursed Christ dome,' Sighvat said. `We'll have to burn them out.'

`No,' I said. 'Same problem as last time. . what we want is in there and will burn with them.'

`We can burn the door, same as last time,' he answered and rose, cupped water in his hands and splashed his face. Shaking himself like a dog, he wandered off, looking to drag a few others into fetching dry wood and anything that would burn.

Two figures, laughing and yelling, chased a shrieking woman from a house and Sighvat polearmed one of them to the ground; he was Arnfinn, an old hand, I saw. His friend skidded to a halt, confused.

I need you pair,' he said and Arnfinn's companion, seeing the woman shrieking round a corner and gone, snarled at Sighvat for the loss.

`Who made you a chief?' he growled, hefting a bloody axe.

`He did,' said Sighvat amiably, jerking a thumb at me. I waved. 'And this did,' he added, slamming the flat of his blade into the man's mouth. He went over spitting teeth and blood. Arnfinn got to his feet and grinned, shamed now at behaving like a raw beginner.

`Didn't expect that when you said to grab the woman, eh, Lambi?' he chuckled, hauling the bloody-mouthed man to his feet. 'What is it that you are wanting us for, Sighvat?'

While Sighvat explained, I heard hoofs and nearly wet myself, then I saw Brother John and the Goat Boy leading in the horses, the wounded Sumarlidi waving a spear while holding a shield and trying to keep his balance, for he was no good rider.

`Help me down, help me down,' he snarled. 'It's too far off the ground up here.'

Brother John and I dragged him down and the Goat Boy gawped at what was going on round him.

`You should have kept him away from sights like this,' grumbled Sumarlidi to Brother John as he dragged himself to the edge of the well. That leg of his, I saw, was ruined completely, a useless thing that might as well not be there at all, for it served no purpose for him now and was a dead weight he'd drag about for the rest of his life.

I think he is well used to them already,' Brother John declared. Tede pes et cuspide cuspis, arma sonant armis, vir petiturque viro — it is the way of things round here, I am thinking.'

If I knew what it meant, I would know more,' answered Sumarlidi. There was a pause as the burning house fell in with a roar and a cloud of flying embers. Finn yelled and cuffed left and right.

It means people are always fighting in these lands,' I told Sumarlidi. 'How's the leg?'

Useless,' he grunted and eyed me warily. 'But stay a blade length from me, Bear Slayer — I want no Valkyrie visits just yet.'

`Nor am I planning any such thing,' I snapped, angry with him now Was I some butcher here?

`You'll beg for the Priest before long, One Leg,' growled Finn, coming up in time to hear the last of this exchange. His face was smeared with soot.

It took an hour to sort out the chaos and collect a sorry, panting bunch, two of whom were already drunk, three dripping blood and one with claw marks down the side of his face.

I had her skirts up,' he was telling the man next to him, and getting no protests. Then I thought to see what I was getting, so I took the cover from her face. She went crazed at that, kicking and bucking and screaming. Clawed my face. Best hump I've had. .'

`Stow it,' ordered Finn and the man's mouth closed with a click.

I told them what I thought and laid it on thick as a slab of week-old porridge. I warned them that if anyone disobeyed me again I would let them walk their entrails round the pole.

I was beginning to enjoy Starkad's vision now, for it was a good one and much better than the hoary old blood-eagle. Old beards like these would laugh at that threat, since it was more boast than fact, though there was a nut of truth in it, for Hedin Flayer hinted he had his name for having done it once, raiding the Liv lands along the Baltic. Or so he said. Others said it was because his craft was hunting wolves for the pelts, which I thought more likely.

At the end of my rant, they shuffled off silently, knowing that they had made a mistake, for only a handful of the robed Saracens were dead and, though the rest had fled, a good two handfuls were locked up in the domed church and it would be a harder fight now to get them out.

So we sat in the square while men scuttled in the narrow doorway, braving the spears to stack wood and start burning through the door, while I fretted about Farouk and his horsemen. I posted watchers and sent Hookeye and Hedin out into the darkness to listen, but there was nothing to do but wait, while the smoke billowed out of the narrow church door-passage.

Now that there was time for it, the men were reluctant to go plundering and humping, fearing the arrival of more Sarakenoi — though Sumarlidi pestered them to go and find a woman for him, since he wasn't so nimble on his feet. After long minutes of his whining, two men went off and dragged back a whimpering woman, whom he perched on the edge of the trough and grunted over while the Goat Boy watched with interest. No one else cared.

Eventually, Sighvat reported that the fire was out, had done some damage, but the defenders had soaked the door and were even pouring wine down through the murder holes in the roof to try and soak the place.

`Which means they have used all the water,' Brother John pointed out.

`Which means they are not planning on a long stay,' I finished for him. 'Farouk and his horsemen are expected.'

That sprang the crew into action, for they knew that a second encounter with those would be a hard fight not in our favour. They would use bows this time, standing off and snicking us one by one, like loose threads off the cuff of a tunic.

That passageway was a tricky opening, for it allowed only one at a time, though it widened at the actual door to three. The wood was charred, but still solid, so we piled in and formed shields over our heads to keep off the stabbing spears from above. Under this crept Finn and others armed with axes to chop at the door.

It was sweaty, noisy work, fetid with the stink of men afraid and, after half an hour, Finn gave a bellow of triumph, for the upper left corner had splintered into a small hole. Frenzied, he hacked and hacked, spraying wood chips everywhere, while the men behind closed up, down on one knee under the roof of shields and ready to spring forward.

Without warning, a spear thrust through the hole, fast as an eye blinking. Finn was on a downstroke, which was Odin luck for him, for the weapon scored across his shoulder and into the throat of the man behind, who gurgled out a scream and fell backwards.

There was chaos then, for the felled man screamed and kicked and had to be dragged out. In the end, everyone abandoned the work and staggered out into the chill night air, gasping and spitting. The man -

Lambi, the one whose teeth had been dunted by Sighvat's sword, I saw — was already dead, leaking a slow pulse of blood, which finally stopped.

We all looked at one another and no one spoke their thoughts, which were darker than the night.

`What we need is a battering ram,' I said.

`With a bend in the middle,' Finn pointed out wryly.

`We could use your tozzle,' Sighvat pointed out to Finn, who chuckled harshly.

`Too few men around to carry that,' he answered, but his eyes had no laugh in them when he looked back at that narrow doorway.

Then the Goat Boy came up, his eyes wide, pointing behind him while he fixed me with his dark-cat gaze.

One Leg has gone in the well,' he declared.

Odin's arse — could this night get any worse?

`The Norns weave in threes, Trader,' Finn said wearily when I yelled this out. Everyone trooped across to the well, where Brother John was holding the shivering woman by one wrist and peering into the dark of it.

`She pushed him off,' Brother John explained, 'while he was trying to. . never mind. But he fell in and hasn't made a sound since.'

Finn shrugged and grabbed the bucket rope, took up the slack and his eyes widened when he felt resistance. He got three others to help and, slowly, the bucket was inched up until Sumarlidi's legs flopped over the edge and they hauled him out.

His neck was broken and his wide-eyed face still looked surprised about it. Nearby, the Arab woman huddled, moaning softly.

`There's no more for him, then,' sighed Brother John sadly and Finn agreed with a sound deep in his throat, part sympathy, part disgust.

A straw death, right enough,' he said and shivered.

I saw it differently, through the ring of that jarl torc. It seemed to me that if you fastened a good steel helm on him, he would make a battering ram with a bend in the middle.

Sumarlidi was better use in death than he had been in life, but by the time the door was broken open, even his mother would have missed him at his own corpse-washing. The helmet was rimmed into the flesh of his brow, so that it was never coming off, so we burned him with it jammed down to his eyebrows and Finn killed the Arab woman and put her at his feet, in the hope that this in some way made up for the death he had died.

Brother John didn't like any of this much, but the others glowered at him and he knew the worship of Christ was too new on them to argue. To me, who did not even try to interfere, he gave a hard look and said:

'The Abyss grows darker the longer you stare down into it.'

That was after the defenders tried to give in, which was as soon as the door broke. They were shouting frantically in their gabble, throwing down bows and spears and holding out their hands and clasping them.

The crew were past caring and cut them down for having put them to all this trouble.

`They had courage,' argued Brother John, trying to get me to stop the slaughter, which was stupid since there was no way I could do that and the fact of it made me sick and angry.

A cornered rat has that courage,' I snarled back at him, the thick iron tang of blood clogging my nose, then I went to find what we had come for. The container was where it was supposed to be, under the stone base for a brazier in what had been the monk chief's room, and I grabbed it up, stuffed it inside my tunic and ordered everyone out and away.

We paused only long enough to lay Sumarlidi and the dead, toothless Lambi out with the bloody enemy dead at their feet, then fired the church and scampered into the safety of the darkness.

Another god place burned and more men killed. In the dark, with the damp wind cooling my face, the sickness rose up in me and I boked and spat it out. I felt a gentle hand on my back and, though I wanted no one to see this, had no strength to do anything but retch.

Brother John patted my shoulder and I heard his low voice say, Tacilis descensus Averno.'

The descent to hell is easy.

Fuck him, what did he know? He wasn't the one in the lead.