Three died in a welter of sprayed blood and muffled shrieks. The fourth found Skapti sitting on him, driving the air from his body, slamming his head casually and rhythmically into the floorboards. I hadn't even moved, found I had stopped breathing and started again with a savage, hoarse intake.
`The monk?' demanded Einar, leaning down to the dazed, battered thrall. His shaved head was bleeding, his eyes rolling. He had shat himself and Skapti, sniffing suspiciously, stopped sitting on him in a hurry, which had the added effect of allowing the man to breathe and talk.
`There . . .'
Gunnar Raudi and Ketil Crow sprang forward. Skapti whacked the flat of his sword on to the thrall's head, which slammed it back into the floorboards. Blood seeped from the thrall's ears, I noticed.
Skapti moved on and probably thought he had been merciful in only knocking the man unconscious. I reckoned, from the rasping breath and leaking blood, that the man would almost certainly die. Even if he didn't, he'd probably be witless, like old Oktar, who had been suspected of releasing the white bear at Bjornshafen.
The following summer he had been kicked in the head by a stallion and blood had come out of his ears.
He had survived, with a big dent and no mind enough to keep him from drooling, so Gudleif had had him sacrificed, in the old way, his blood sprinkled on the fields, as a mercy. Another wyrd death to lay at the den of that bear—and, of course, at the feet of my father.
A series of shouts and a scuffle snatched me from these thoughts. Ketil Crow arrived, more or less behind Martin the monk, who smiled smoothly at Einar—much to all our bewilderment. 'Excellent,' he declared. `How did you plan to get me out?'
`How do you know we planned to get you out and not just lay you out?' scowled Ketil Crow. Einar indicated the corpse bed Hring was dragging in and Martin's smile grew broader still.
`Clever,' he said, then, briskly: 'There is a woman next door. She will be the one for that bed, well covered. I will, if I may, borrow a cloak and helm—from Orm, who is my size '
`Wait, wait,' growled Einar, scrubbing his stubbled chin. 'What's all this? What woman?'
Martin was already pulling the cloak from my unyielding shoulders, trying to prise my leather helmet off.
I slapped his hands away.
`Lambisson does not esteem me. He will be back soon, having realised that the woman I had brought here is more valuable than anything else he seeks.'
`Valuable?' demanded Einar.
`She knows the way to a great treasure,' Martin responded, tugging, then rounded angrily on me. 'Let it go, you idiot boy.'
At which point, angered beyond anything I had experienced in my life, I swung my sword in a half-arc. It was wild—a bad swing entirely, as Skapti said later. It hit the monk high on the head, but with the flat, not the edge. He went down like a sacrificed horse, gone from a twisted-faced little weasel of a man to a heap of rags on the floor.
Einar bent, studied him for a moment, then stroked his beard again and nodded admiringly at me. 'Good stroke. Hring, bring the little rat round. Let's find this woman . . .'
We moved to the door, opened it as cautiously as possible and Ketil Crow moved in, followed by Gunnar Raudi, then me. Einar and Skapti stayed outside.
It was dark, lit only by a horn lantern, guttering low, and fetid, a strange, high smell which I came to recognise later as fear and shit in equal measure. Ketil Crow knew it well, for it put him into a half-crouch, blade held low in his left hand, hackles up. Behind, Gunnar Raudi moved to the left. Naively, I bumbled on, past Ketil and on to the middle of the room, to the only furniture in it: a low bed with a pile of rags.
It was only when the rags moved that I realised it was human . . . or had been once, at least. There was a droning sound, a long muttering, then a sobbing—such a sound as to crack your heart. I backed away, my own hackles up. Perhaps this was the fetch of a woman who had died . . .
Gunnar poked the rags with the blunt tip of his sword and they moved rapidly, scuttling like an animal, reached the end of a length of chain and stopped. A head came up, framed with tangled, greasy hair, face pale as the moon and with two wild, bright orbs staring back at us. The woman—if woman it was—gabbled something which sounded vaguely familiar. Ketil Crow advanced slowly and, from the door, Einar's impatient voice growled for us to get the bloody woman and be done with it.
Ìt's chained up,' Ketil Crow said.
Ìt stinks,' added Gunnar. 'And it's chained by the foot.'
`Then cut the flicking thing,' hissed Einar, Behind him came slapping sounds and a low moan as Martin was brought back to life.
`The foot?' I gasped, aghast at such an idea, but knowing either of them was capable of it. Gunnar shot me a scornful scowl.
`The chain, you horse's arse.' And he nodded to Ketil Crow to get on with it, but got only a scowl.
Ùse your own blade. I like the edge on mine.'
`By Loki's hairy arse!' roared Skapti, barrelling in and knocking everyone aside, the huge Shieldbreaker sword soaring up. The pile of rags that was a woman saw it, screamed once and flopped. The blade whirled down; the chain shattered at the point where it joined an iron fetter.
Skapti swung round, his eyes boar-like and red. Instinctively, Ketil Crow and Gunnar backed away.
`Now you pair of turds can carry her,' he growled. For a moment, Ketil Crow's eyes narrowed dangerously and I watched him, for I knew if he struck Skapti it would be from behind. No sane man would face an armed Skapti in a confined space.
Instead, he grinned like a wolf on a kill and moved to the woman. I followed Skapti outside, where Martin was sitting up and shaking his head, dripping from the contents of a ewer Hring had thrown on him.
Hring, smirking, was trying to force the pewter pot inside his tunic, flattening it into uselessness as he did so.
Einar hauled the monk up on to unsteady legs and clapped him playfully on the shoulder. 'Sore head, eh?
Now you be quiet and nice, or I will let the Bear Slayer loose on you again.'
Everyone chuckled—save me and Martin.
Ì will want to know more of this, monk,' Einar went on. 'But, for now, we will follow your plan. Orm, give him your cloak and helm, for I don't think Brondolf Lambisson will want him gone from here and may have left instructions to that effect. Lower the woman on to the corpse bed and cover her up. Then we can leave.'
They had completed their task, were hefting the bed and moving from the wreck of the room, when the door opened and Brondolf Lambisson strode in, holding a small chest close to his own.
There had been no warning for him. One minute he was coming into the neat, warm hov of his fortress, slippers on his feet, a nice warm hat on his head; the next he had stepped into a nightmare wreck of a room, reeking of shit and blood, littered with corpses and come face to face with the last six armed men in the world he wanted to meet.
He had time to give a strangled yelp and whirl back out of the door, though, hurling the chest straight at the nearest, which happened to be Skapti and Einar. It hit Skapti on the shoulder, smacked Einar on the forehead and dazed him. With a cry, Skapti dropped his end of the corpse bed, blocking the doorway.
Àh, Odin's bollocks . . .'
Einar was clutching his head, cursing so hard I made a sign against angering the very gods he maligned.
Blood stained his fingers when he removed them.
Skapti started to lumber after the fleeing Lambisson, but Einar grabbed him. 'No. Time to row hard for it,'
he said through pain-gritted teeth.