It was so unexpected an outburst from him that it brought gusts of laughter and the hunchback, unaccustomed to the attention, dropped his neck down and his hump up and went quiet again.
'He would have singed the eagle's feathers, right enough,' offered Finn pointedly. 'Fried him up, there and then. Why did he not do that in this tale, little Crowbone, eh?'
'And been stuck, unable to get home?' retorted Crowbone. 'The wyrm has much more clever in him than you, Finn Horsehead.'
'That is why he is jarl,' added Gyrth pointedly to Finn, 'and you are not.'
That brought more chuckles and catcalls at Finn's expense, which made him grin and scowl in equal measure. Then Kvasir slapped his thigh with one hand, sharp and loud and silencing.
'I asked for this tale — now let us hear how it ends.'
Crowbone acknowledged his marshalling with a slight bow, then cleared his throat.
'The eagle groaned and moaned,' he continued. 'He demanded to be let go. He turned three times red and three times white, he threatened and then he begged to be released. "I will gladly do so when you set me down at my own home," said the wyrm.'
Here, Crowbone muffled it out like someone talking and biting at the same time. It was so like Finn with his Roman nail in his mouth that thighs were slapped and appreciative roars went up.
'The eagle flew high,' Crowbone went on. 'Then he flew low. He darted down with the speed of an arrow. He shook his leg. He turned and twirled, but it was to no purpose. He could not rid himself of the wyrm until he set him down safely in front of the door of his own hov.
'As the eagle flew away the wyrm called after him, "Friendship requires the contribution of two parties. I welcome you and you welcome me. Since, however, you have chosen to make a mockery of it, you need not call again."
'And so it is that wyrms took to the dark places of the earth, for they did not trust in eagles, or anyone else, not to steal from them.'
'Share your wealth, or men will wish you ill in every limb,' Red Njal added, but did not have time to speak of his granny, for Dobrynya had stepped into the last lines of Crowbone's tale. He did not acknowledge that he had heard any of it, nor show that he knew what had been meant by it, only nodded to me and made a little movement of his fire-bloody beard to draw me apart.
I went to him, while the mutter and growls and low laughs started behind me and my men, who had not missed the point of Crowbone's tale, fell to arguing over it.
'The prince has decided that we must go to Biela Viezha,' Dobrynya said softly, giving Sarkel its Rus name. 'We will take all the horses we have and use them to haul out the carts of silver we have here and one with supplies. We will then get more supplies and carts and horses from Biela Viezha and return. I have sent Avraham and Morut ahead, to see how matters are in the fortress.'
A clever move, to see if the garrison at Biela Viezha was willing. Now that Sviatoslav was dead there was no guarantee that this frontier fortress, so recently Khazar, would stay loyal. If it did, then it would be loyal to Jaropolk, prince of Kiev, not Vladimir, prince of far-away Novgorod.
Dobrynya nodded blandly when I pointed all this out.
'They will be loyal to profit,' he answered smoothly. 'Novgorod's prince is still a son of Sviatoslay. We will get supplies and horses, enough to use as a pack train. We will come back, take what we can from this place and organize boats to take us downriver to the Dark Sea, for it is clear that the ice has been broken that far.'
Out and away, fast as raiders, that was what Dobrynya had persuaded his nephew was best. He was not wrong; we could not plunder the whole wealth of Atil's tomb, but even what we had now was a fortune. After a visit to Biela Viezha, though, the place would be no secret; scavengers would arrive in droves and the fighting would begin over who owned it.
I nodded agreement, adding: 'As soon as I have seen to Short Eldgrim.'
Dobrynya blinked a bit and I saw he was hoping to go at first light and that my hunting around in Atil's howe for someone he clearly thought dead was a waste of crucial time. To be honest, I thought this also and did not much care about Brondolf Lambisson, huddled in the dark with his cold silver. That and the fear of what Hild-fetch lurked there made me want to agree with Dobrynya — but Short Elgrim and the Oath drove me into the dark.
His pause was brief, then he nodded and smiled. We clasped wrists on it and he went back to his little eagle, sitting at the fire and laughing with silver-nosed Sigurd. Crowbone was now there, sitting with his uncle — and Kveldulf, which I did not like.
And Jon Asanes, which I liked even less.
16
It was the heart of ice, that dread tomb. So cold it froze flame, as Finn had once promised and even he now saw the raw, gleaming power of it as he slid down the knotted rope with his nail in his teeth and one hand clutching a guttering torch.
I held its twin, clutched the rune sword in my other hand — I would not have gone down into the maw of that hole without that blade — and waited for him. The flicker of torchlight turned the rime-slathered place into a bounce of sparkles, like the sun on moving sea, as we turned, half-crouched and prepared for anything.
I had been in this place once before, but Finn never had and I saw his jaw slacken so that the slavered Roman nail fell from it, hitting the frosted floor. It should have clattered out echoes, but that place sucked sound in and he only noticed it was gone from his mouth when he breathed, ragged and gasping.
The rope trembled when he let it go, a thin hope that led back to the patch of pale light and the world of the living. Here, though, there was only death, grinning from the huge, silver throne, leprous with cold; I could hardly bring myself to look at it.
When I did, I saw the faded brocade of once rich robes, laid neatly on the throne as a cushion for bones, including the skull that smiled welcome. Atil's skull.
'Einar?' Finn managed at last from lips that trembled and not from the cold of the place.
I shook my head. There was a scatter of bones in front of that great ice-slathered throne and some of them belonged to Ildico, the princess who had killed Atilla — one forlorn wrist and forearm, five centuries yellowed, hung still from the shackles that had fastened her forever to Atil's last seat.
The others belonged mostly to Einar; I saw a skull, still with long straggles of black wisping it, all that remained of his crow-wing hair, and pointed to it it. Swallowing, Finn made a warding sign and fumbled to pick up his Roman nail.
'Heys, old jarl,' he whispered, as if afraid to speak aloud. 'We have come back, as you see. Treat us kindly.'
I did not think he would, much. I had left Einar sitting on that throne, skewered by me but dying even as I finished him. Atil's remains, swaddled in those rich robes, had been torn from the seat by Hild in her frantic eagerness to seize one of his two rune swords.
Yet now they were back, neatly placed and Einar had been scattered like a dead dog at Atil's feet. I peered and poked warily, found and rolled other skulls into the light of the torch — Ketil-Crow, Sigtrygg, Illugi, who had all died here.
I said their names, the sound of my voice falling like snow off a roof, dull and soft.
'And her, Bear Slayer?' Finn asked, tucking the nail down one boot, recovering a measure of his old swagger. 'This one looks a little small to be any head I remember. Perhaps this is Hild.'
Ildico, I was thinking, as he held up the yellow grin and empty sockets of her, whose arm was still fastened to the throne. I did not think we would find Hild, for I did not think she was dead. Someone had restored Atil to his throne and made a clear gesture with the bones of intruders. I did not think Lambisson had done it and said so.
That made Finn frown and think and not like what he came up with. He held the torch up higher, shifting the light on the dark paths between tall cliffs of bulked blackness. I saw his face the moment the truth hit him, knew that he was about to ask where all the silver was hidden, when he saw it.