'You are crew light for a task like that,' I told him, seeing it for the truth — otherwise he would not have offered any deal. 'I do not think I will tell you anything today.'
'By the time I am done with you,' Klerkon said, whitening round the eyes and mouth, 'you will beg to tell me every little secret you hold.'
I hauled out my blade and the sound of his own echoed it. The sucking whispers of other blades being drawn in the darkness was the soft hiss of a snake slithering in on a fear-stunned mouse.
Then the door hurled open with a crash and daylight flared in, catching us so that we froze, as if caught fondling each other.
'Your watchmen are shite,' growled a familiar voice and Finn bulked out the light. 'So I have done you a favour.'
Something flew through the air and smacked wetly on the table, hitting the edge of the platter, which sprayed horse meat and half-congealed grease everywhere. The object bounced up, rolled and dropped neatly into Klerkon's lap.
He jerked back from it, so that it crunched to the floor. The eyes were the only recognizable things in the smashed, bloody ruin of a face. Stoor. Watery blood leaked from the raw mess where his neck had been parted from the rest of him. Somewhere a woman shrieked; Thordis, of course, one hand to her mouth and her hair awry.
'Thordis,' I said and held out one hand. She looked at me, then at Tor and I knew, with a lurch of sick fear, that she would not leave him — and that we could not carry a hamstrung man.
There was a moment where I thought to take her round the waist and cart her off — but it was an eyeblink only. If we failed, Klerkon would know she was sister to Kvasir's wife and would use that to lever the secret he wanted out of me. Finn knew it, too, knew that she was safer if Klerkon stayed ignorant. He laid a free, gentling hand on my forearm; it left bloody smears.
'Time to be going, I am thinking, Jarl Orm,' he said and I moved to the door as the light from it slid down the bright, gleaming blade he called The Godi — Priest. He pointed it at Klerkon and the snarlers behind him, a warning as we backed out of the hall and ran for the waiting comfort of our own armed men.
Even as we sprinted out in a spray of mud and feverish elation, howling at each other with the sheer relief of having cheated our way to safety, there was the bitter taste of it all in the back of my throat, thick and metalled.
The wolf packs were gathering for the feast of Atil's tomb. Short Eldgrim and Cod-Biter were prisoners of one, Thordis was prisoner of another.
I set men to watch and we held an Althing of it round the hearthfire as Thorgunna doled out the night-meal. No-one felt much like eating, though and our weapons were within hand's reach.
Botolf was all for taking all the newly sworn crew in an attack in the dark to finish it all. Kvasir spoke up for blocking Klerkon from leaving and sending to Jarl Brand for help. Thorgunna wanted to know what we were going to do about her sister. Ingrid wept.
Finn stayed silent until everyone else had talked themselves exhausted. He went out once — to check on the guards, I thought, which was sensible. When he returned, he sat in the shadows and said nothing.
Then he came and hunkered by the fire, while I slumped in the carved chair and tried to think up a way out.
Attacking was no answer — it would be a sore battle and one of the first things they would do would be to kill their prisoners, who would be hand-bound only and able to run if not watched.
Running to Jarl Brand might help, but no matter how goldbrowed my words were to him, all the same, it came out as too many sea-raiders running around his lands, frightening folk with their swords and I did not think he would take kindly to me having kept the secret of Atil's tomb from him all these years. Worse, I had barefaced lied to him about the tale being true.
There was a deep sick feeling in me that I might, after all, have to trade with Klerkon.
'We should beware the night,' Botolf declared. 'Klerkon is a fox for cunning and he has that Kveldulf with him, too.'
Kveldulf — Night Wolf — was a man rumoured to be other than a man when the moon came up. Finn grunted and picked some choice morsels out of the pot and Botolf tilted his head questioningly, just as Ingrid told him to pull his wooden foot back from the fire, for it was charring.
'You do not agree, Finn Horsehead?' Botolf said mildly, though he was annoyed, both at his own foot-carelessness and Finn's casual dismissal of his plan.
Finn, wiping gravy from his beard, chewed and shook his head.
'You have all gone soft and forgotten about what we truly are,' he said, harsh as crow-song, his face blooded by the fire. 'What would we do in Klerkon's sea boots?'
There was silence. Botolf looked at Kvasir, who looked at me, cocking his head like a bird, the way he had taken to doing recently. The certainty of it struck us all, so that we almost leaped up at the same time. Thralls squeaked; Thorgunna, alarmed, demanded to know what was happening, grabbing up the long roasting fork.
'It has already happened,' Finn declared as we headed for the door. 'I went outside to see for myself.'
'And said nothing?' I roared, sick with the surety that, even knowing, I could have done nothing. Kvasir ducked out the door and Thorgunna shushed the squealing thralls and demanded to know what was happening. Cormac bawled, red-faced.
Kvasir came back in, the rain-scented night swirling in with him, rank with woodsmoke. He nodded to me.
'What is happening?' demanded Thorgunna with a roar. 'Are we attacked?'
We were not, nor would we be. Klerkon had done what any sensible sea-raider would do, given that his enterprise had not woven itself as tight as he would have liked. He had made the best of matters.
As Kvasir explained it, soothing and soft and patting to Thorgunna, I opened the door and stepped out to where the wind soughed, driving a mist of cloud over the moon, heavy with smell of wet earth and rain. But that could not hide the sharp tang of smoke and the horizon glowed where Tor's steading burned.
In the smeared-silver dawn, I rode over with Kvasir, Finn and Thorgunna to where the raven feathers of smoke stained the sky, but there was nothing left of Gunnarsgard other than charred timbers. Flann's body was where it had been and crows flapped heavily off it as we came up, but they had taken Stoor, body and head both. There was only one other corpse and that was a shrivelled horror perched on a bench in the black ruin of the hov.
Thorgunna slithered off the back of her pony, her dress caught up between her legs and looped over her belt in front for riding, so that it looked as if she wore fat breeks. Her strong calves flexed as she stumped to where the hall smoked damply and stood, legs slightly apart, rocking backwards and forwards for a long moment, staring at the grisly mess.
'Tor,' she said eventually and I nodded. It made sense — Klerkon dealt in profit and had killed the useless, hamstrung Tor, then taken his thralls and his woman and everything he could, down to the very chickens.
Thorgunna bent, picked something up, turned and walked back, looking up at where I sat on the pony.
She placed one hand on my knee and I felt it tremble like a nested bird. In her dirt-calloused palm was a snapped thong and a bone slice threaded on it. Tor Owns Me, said the runes on it; one of the tokens Tor tied on the neck of his thralls in case any thought of running. Klerkon had herded them to Dragon Wings and a new market — and not just the thralls.
He had taken what profit he could and gone off to brood and chew his nails on what to do next to prise the secret of treasure from me and it was clear he did not yet know Thordis could be used for it. If he found out. .