"Everyone needs to have their spirits raised, so I've announced a feast with games and plenty of drink to be held within two days. We must celebrate the destruction of Clovis and the Franks, before King Odo sends more to harass us. Rest up so you may join us. It will do everyone good to see you out of bed, particularly your mother. At least consider it for her."
Gunnar nodded, and Ulfrik closed the door behind him. He worried a feast and games would stretch their stores for winter, but something had to be done to make victory feel less like defeat.
Chapter 59
Throst had found the north gate of Ravndal unbarred, just as Halla had promised. He gently widened it only enough to slide his body through the crack. He had to hold his bow in one hand and quiver in the other to pass. Sounds of celebration carried high over the black walls, so far that even Dan and Olaf had commented on it when they left him at the edge of the woods. "Don't stay for a drink," Olaf had quipped. "We're going to have to run faster than last time."
Only now Throst had a horse. The Franks raised obedient beasts that could fly like ravens over the ground even under his unskilled direction. He left the piebald tethered to a rock within sprinting distance of the walls. The celebration consumed the attention of every person in Ravndal. After all, there were no enemies remaining in the land worth watching. He had ridden to the walls without a care, passing the wreckage of battle and stopping to examine overlooked bits of potential value. Nothing of worth turned up, but then he had already picked the best days ago.
Inside he clung to the walls. The scent of roasting meat filled the air, where only days ago it had been the scent of the burned dead. Ravndal bore the scars of its recent battle. Fences were destroyed, barrels shattered, and walls breached. Animal pens were mended but doors still sat crooked in their frames, having been battered down and not properly rehung. Rust stains dappled the wall of a home as Throst sneaked past it. He noted a bloody handprint that had slid down to the dirt. The cheering and laughing celebration in the distance was a stark contrast to the vestiges of death.
A ladder hung against the wall, right where Halla had said she would have it placed. While other ladders could get him onto the parapets, this one was obscured from view in the central square where the contests were taking place, and where Runa and all Throst's other targets would be gathered. Checking for people and finding none, he swept up the ladder with bow and quiver slung across his back.
He crouched on the parapet, a slim board barely suitable for standing and never for fighting. Guards could observe the surrounding fields and fire bows, but would never have the footing to do battle. He crawled slowly on hands and feet, both for stability and concealment. His heart beat heavily and he dared not to look down at the celebration for fear of being caught. The thought was stupid, he knew, but yet he believed a look was equal to a shout.
Progress went slowly, until he found a vantage point revealing most of the square. Every motion had to be swift and faultless from this point. He placed his bow and quiver carefully aside, took a rope he had lengthened with sheets tied to the end, and fished it over the side of the wall before securing it. He dug out the bowstring from his pouch, first finding the gold chain Halla had offered as a good faith payment. Once he had strung the bow, working with quiet intensity as the milky light of day lit him for the world to see, he drew an arrow from the quiver. Each arrowhead had been blackened in fire and rubbed with soot for good measure. A stray glint of light would make him a target for every bow in Ravndal.
Laying the arrow across the staff, touching it to the string, he scanned the square. People milled in throngs: men and women, children and the old, dogs and chickens, all pilled together in a press of overzealous celebration. The greatest concentration of people were at the rows of wooden kegs where women kept ale flowing for anyone who had an empty mug. No one he sought would be there, and so he ranged wider. He caught a man and woman humping behind a pig pen, snorted at the sight, and eventually settled on the ax throwing competition.
Ulfrik and all of his kin were clustered at the sideline as a fat man in a scraggly wolf pelt lined up his two-handed ax on the target. He let it fly and it spun with tremendous force but poor accuracy to chop into the target painted on a thick section of tree. He held out both hands as if he did not own them and the crowd laughed or cheered at his good humor. Runa and Ulfrik both stood clearly before anyone else, their children gathered close. He paused at the horrid bruise and swelling on the left side of Runa's face. He smiled and continued to scan. Hakon looked especially hale since Throst had seen him last. Gunnar, however, seemed barely aware of the celebration. Runa stood with his arm entwined in hers, never a more motherly scene had Throst ever witnessed.
Had he taken enough arrows, he could kill all of Ulfrik's family and a fair number of his friends, so tight was the clutch of targets. He raised the bow and leveled it.
Runa's swollen face hung on the end of the arrowhead. He swiveled farther left, past Gunnar, Hakon, and Aren, over Einar and his family, past the scar-faced Konal-who surprised him for being alive-and settled on Halla.
She stood stiff, hands clutched to her chest, and recoiled at every jostle as if a pile of crockery had crashed unexpectedly behind her. Her two children clung to her skirts and Toki shouted with the crowd while spilling ale from his drinking horn, all seemingly oblivious to Halla's distress.
He waited as Toki and Ulfrik began to shout to each other. Soon the crowd was encouraging Toki and he came forward to pick up an ax to the applause of the crowd. Ulfrik came forward, held up Toki's arm and proclaimed something to the crowd.
Throst lined up his shot.
Halla had used him. She had played his weaknesses with skill, manipulating him into feeling small and stupid. Once she had left, he realized how easily he had been played. But she had done something far worse. She had lied about Astra.
Throst had seen Astra's corpse hung from the walls of Ravndal, apparently to send a warning message. The body had not been hacked to bits, nor had she been beheaded. From the distance he had viewed the body, the black blood stains on her dress made it seem she had been stabbed or had her neck slashed. If Halla had witnessed all she claimed, there could be nothing to hang from the walls, and if she had lied it could only be an attempted diversion from her guilt. Who else had a reason to stifle Astra? Runa would have wanted to question rather than kill her, and thereby uncover Halla's treachery.
He flicked his eyes up, glancing across the roofs of Ravndal to the dark silhouette of the hanging tree atop its rocky hill. His father's corpse still dangled there.
"No one takes from me," he said low in his throat. "I will teach you that lesson, bitch. Piss on your gold. Both you and Ulfrik will remember this."
Toki was lining up his shot. All eyes were down range on the target. He let the ax fly.
Throst released his arrow.
The shaft took Toki in the side of the neck. He clamped his hand over it like swatting a bug. Throst had already loosed another shaft, and it lanced into his ear.
Toki collapsed even as the crowd cheered his expert throw.
Looping the bow over his shoulder, he did not stay to watch the reaction. He left Astra's comb and an arrow on the parapet. He grabbed his rope, scaled halfway down the walls and jumped the final distance, then dashed for his horse. He was already galloping for the trees when he heard cheers turn to screams.
He threw his head back and laughed. No one takes from Throst Shield-Biter without twice the payback.