The White Raven

by Robert Low

Martin. Finn growled and shook his head. 'I wish you had killed him that day in Birka, when you had the chance, Orm,' he said.

  That day seemed so long ago as to be no more substantial than breath on polished steel.

  'What of Tien?' asked Gyrth, which was clever and which I should have thought to ask. Morut looked blankly from Onund to me, and back again.

  'As you know,' he answered slowly, 'we were never friends and once he had told all I wanted to hear I paid him back for the insults. This horse was his.'

  No-one said anything to this, though everyone looked at the smooth-faced little tracker with new respect. I was too busy thinking that Sveinald and his son remained in ignorance of events and knew only that their tracker had not yet returned. They were on foot, too and would be slogging through the ice and cold — so we had time yet.

  'Avraham is hoping to command the Sarkel garrison to resist everyone,' Morut went on moodily. 'I think he is a great fool, for the garrison is as much Slav as Khazar these days and even they call it Biela Viezha now. Avraham is blinded by dreams of old greatness. In the end, he will tell the garrison of the silver in the carts and that will persuade them.'

  Dobrynya and Sigurd would suspect this, I knew. They would want away before either the garrison at Biela Viezha, or Sveinald's Kiev druzhina discovered their haul of silver.

  'Why are you telling us all this, little man?' Hauk Fast-Sailor wanted to know, a second before I opened my mouth to ask.

  Morut thought on the question and frowned.

  'Prince Vladimir did not tell me or Avraham that he planned to leave you to face the Oior Pata alone and steal your share of the silver,' he answered. 'It was not a princely matter and I said so to Avraham. He did not care, is of the opinion that you are all unbelieving pagans and deserve everything God inflicts on you.'

  'I shall let some of the puff out of that bladder,' Finn promised.

  'You do not share this view?' I asked and Morut shook his head.

  'It was no matter of mine,' he answered, bold-eyed and truthful. 'I thought that a quarrel over such a large hill of riches was a mountain of folly; there was surely enough for everyone.'

  'Just so,' I replied. 'And so you are here. Sent by Vladimir, or his uncle?'

  'Sent by no-one, save God. Or Allah, for I have not decided where I will go. The prince does not know I am gone, nor anyone else. I came to see if the Oior Pata had killed you —but it seems you have tamed the Man-Haters.'

  There was admiration in his voice — then he frowned again. 'Truthfully, it was the blind man's killing I did not like. Nor the way they handled his woman.'

  Thordis would not stop weeping, even when Finn put his arms awkwardly round her. Eldgrim patted her as if she was a dog or a child, muttering softly, though he had no clear idea why she was breaking her heart out on the cold steppe.

  No-one else had much to say; the crushing loss of Kvasir was a burden that made even speaking difficult, so that when Morut had finished the telling of it, there was such a silence that it shrieked.

  Kvasir had come up on them, just as the cavalcade of horses, carts and men had reached the bridge over the ditch at Biela Viezha. Here there was nothing more than a rough palisade fence, enough to keep marauding wolves from the yurts and enclosures, for this was the winter camp of steppe people, who came with their goats and their hairy, two-humped camels from further east and their horses and dogs, sheltering in the lee of the scabbed, white walls of the fortress.

  Morut had seen Kvasir arrive, had watched him come up with empty hands held out to his sides and be escorted to just beyond blade reach of Vladimir and Dobrynya and Sigurd.

  'It seemed to me,' Morut said, as we squatted in a huddled stand of birch, the wind rattling the stiff branches, 'that he spoke of the boy, Jon, for that one was brought forward and I heard some raised voices between them.'

  'He went to bring Jon Asanes back,' I said and Morut shrugged.

  'The boy was no prisoner. He came with us smartly enough, smiling with Crowbone and speaking of taking his share of the silver and going to the Great City.'

  I had suspected it, but the fullness of it felt like a cold knife in my bowels. Finn growled and shook his head, but I could not tell if it was disbelief at Morut's tale or disgust at Jon's behaviour.

  'After that,' Morut said, 'Kveldulf stepped forward and said something. There were words spoken and Dobrynya then told Kvasir to go away. This I heard, for I had moved closer. Jon Asanes also pleaded with Kvasir to go away, before it was worse for him.

  'Then Kvasir said to Jon Asanes that he would break Orm's heart in this matter and Kveldulf growled that it would be better if Kvasir stayed, permanently. Then Kvasir hit Kveldulf and a good blow it was, knocking that man clean off his feet, so that even I could hear the ringing in his ears. Then Kvasir told Kveldulf to be quiet, that men were speaking here.'

  'Heya,' breathed Finn admiringly. I felt the sickening rise of what I knew would come next.

  'Kveldulf came up spitting,' Morut went on, 'and his sword came out and they set too, with Vladimir demanding that they stop and Dobrynya cursing and Sigurd calling for the druzhina to move in and stop the fight. But it was clear that Kvasir could not see hardly at all, so Kveldulf had almost no fight of it and felled him with a blow between neck and shoulder.'

  Finn gave a long groan at this and everyone else shifted and grunted as if they had taken such a blow themselves.

  The cold of his loss numbed us then and I could hardly get the words past my teeth. 'What then?'

  Morut frowned. 'Well, Kvasir was lying there, with the blood seeping from him and Dobrynya sighed and said that was that, while Sigurd shook his head with a face like a stone cliff and said it would be the worse for all now.'

  'He has the right of it there,' Finn managed to squeeze out. His knuckles clenched and unclenched so tightly on the hilt of The Godi that the red sores split and blood welled.

  Morut looked uneasily round him, then and I saw he did not want to tell the rest of it. He caught my eye, saw my look and swallowed, nodding.

  'Kveldulf knelt down by Kvasir, who was not yet quite dead and said to him: "Stone am I?" which I did not understand. Then he took out his long knife . . .'

  The tracker stopped, looking at the stone of my face. There was no reprieve there for what he had to say.

  'He dug out the eyes.'

  Finn went still, which was not what I expected. Hauk sprang to his feet and cursed; Red Njal pounded the ice until his fist bled and he howled, while Short Eldgrim whimpered, even though it was clear he did not quite know why — but Finn went as cold and still as a snow-crowned stone. When I reached out a hand to his shoulder, I felt the underneath of him trembling like a horse before a fight.

  'What of Thorgunna?' I asked and the little tracker nodded miserably.

  'They left his body on the steppe,' he said, 'and Kveldulf took the eyes and put them in a pouch on his belt, saying he would add Finn's remaining ear to them in time and that, if Thor permitted, he would perhaps make a whole new person out of pieces of the Oathsworn of Orm Bear Slayer.'

  He stopped and considered me carefully, then added: 'He said the final piece of it would be your head.'

  'What of Thorgunna?' I persisted, only vaguely aware of the Night Wolfs boasting.

  Morut paused, looking round at the glittering eyes feeding on his words, clearly wondering if he was digging his own grave as he spoke.

  'We had been at the river bank for no more than a few hours,' he said, 'arranging for boats and had started in to loading them when Thorgunna came up. We knew her at once, of course, and she went straight to Vladimir and knelt before him and asked for her husband's eyes, so it was clear she had found her man and seen what had been done to him. The prince did not look happy and said he was sorry for what had been done, for killing an Oathsworn had not been part of the weft of matters. Thorgunna simply repeated her request and the little prince looked like a dog on the point of being whipped, for he could not deliver the items without comm
anding Kveldulf — which he did. Kveldulf was not happy at being so commanded, but could do nothing else but hand over the pouch, which he did with ill-grace.'

  Morut stopped then and glanced round at all the faces, pale, harsh as moons in the growing twilight.

  'Go on,' I ordered.

  Morut shook his head sadly. 'Perhaps it would be best if . . .'

  'Say it out!' Finn's voice was a face-slap and Morut jerked, then nodded.

  'Thorgunna looked at Kveldulf with no fear at all, the pouch in her hand. Then she leaned closer to him and said something I did not catch — but he went wide-eyed with anger and hit her in the face.'

  Now there was movement, frantic dashes; Gyrth swung his long-axe and slashed the frozen snow, cursing. But Finn stayed silent and only glanced over once, like a blind man, to where Thordis was weeping.

  'She fell to the ground and he kicked her in the belly before Sigurd dragged him off and flung him away. I saw Jon Asanes go to her, to help her up and she said something to him that made him go white and stop dead and shrink, as if he had been lashed. She got to her feet on her own, but then doubled up and fell down again; there was blood and she went limp and did not speak.'

  'Is she dead?' demanded Bjaelfi.

  Morut shook his head, frowning. 'No. They carried her to shelter on a landed boat. Little Crowbone is sure she has lost her child, all the same. He was crying, for he had seen this before with his mother, he said, and was sure it was the same man who had done it.'

  There was silence after that, while the darkness seeped round us and we sat like numbed stones, unable even to think. Morut eventually made a fire and the soft, red flicker of it brought us all blinking back to the Now, as if we had been asleep.

  There was no need to ask what we would do next; the cold rage sat on us like some haar from Hel, so that even the fire guttered in the chill. It was Thordis who said what we had all been thinking.

  'Odin's gift,' she spat. 'What made us think we could escape the curse of Fafnir's silver?'

  'We will kill them all,' howled Hlenni, his face twisted. Red Njal laid a hand along his arm, stilling him.

  'You do not have to put out a fire when all is ash,' he said. Then added, softly: 'As my granny used to say.'

  All I could think of was my dream, where Odin had told me that One Eye would force a sacrifice from me and it would be something I held dear. Like all that shape-twisting god's promises, it was never what it seemed; the One Eye had not been Odin, but Kvasir and the sacrifice had been himself.

  Until that moment, I had not realized how much I hated All-Father Odin. I hated him, cold and harsh, as we stamped out Morut's fire and moved off, hurrying like loping wolves across the mocking steppe, which glittered like riches under the silver-coin moon. I hated him when, led by Morut, we came up to the stiff shape, wrapped tenderly in Thorgunna's blood-frozen cloak.

  I could not — dared not — look on the eyeless face of my friend; we wrapped and roped him and dragged him after us across the ice and frozen earth like a pack of old furs and no-one complained of the burden, for we would not leave him behind for the wolves.

  As the dawn slid up, all haar-mist and pale shimmer, we knelt in a stand of brush and trees at the Ditch Bridge, the black dog of Kvasir's loss at our heels. Beyond the ditch was the dark sprawl ofyurt and brick-built hovs and enclosures. Little points of light danced here and there, the low growl of noise was split by a barking dog, the plaintive bleat of a goat.

  To our right were the great bulked walls of Biela Viezha, red blossoms marking the night fires of the sentries.

  I sent Morut in; I needed to know where Thorgunna was and where the boats were.

  'You have, no doubt, a cunning plan,' Gizur said. Finn grunted, fishing out his nail from his boot, for he knew the cunning plan and, when I laid it out, Gizur scrubbed the tangled burr of his beard and frowned. After he and a few others had hoiked up their offerings on the matter, it became clear that my plan, cunning or not, was the only one.

  So we waited and the dawn struggled, thick as cream, trying to make a new day and foiled by ice mist on the river. There was little talk and that in grunts; men fixed straps and eased mail; everything else they owned had gone with Vladimir, so all they had was what they stood in and held in their hands.

  It was all they needed and, when Morut came back, I had everything I needed, too and turned to them, looking for words to say and finding nothing but the choke in my throat. So I looked at the wrapped bundle and the two men who would haul it, so that every eye turned to look at it, then turned to look back to me, bright and fierce as hawks.

  'Fleya,' Finn growled softly and slipped his nail between his jaws. Then we rose in a pack and wolfed into the crawling haar and across the ditch, silent, fast and vengeful.

  It was, as Morut said when he listened to it, not much of a plan — we attack, fast and loose because we would come up through the enclosures and tents, which would give us cover, but prevent any shield wall. We kill everything in front of us, grab Thorgunna and a boat and row like frothing madmen downriver, towards the tangle of channels that led to the Azov.

  'Simple, brutal and with no great plan in it at all,' Morut added, shaking his head.

  'I like it,' countered Finn truculently.

  'Which only makes my point firmer,' replied Morut.

  We came up through the buildings, leaping the low fences of withies, scattering horses, hacking out at the odd goat, plootering through the hoof-chewed dark mess of soil and shit.

  The fortress of Sarkel, the White Castle, was a pale blur, like some great berg looming out of a dark sea. Around it sprawled yurts and some brick-built hovs, drunken fence enclosures and the framed tents of wintering shipmen. Somewhere by the river Vladimir shivered with his men, waiting for daylight to load boats and be away, before the garrison made up its mind what to do about him.

  We were wolves, slithering in a hunting pack, but not down on chickens. We were showing our fangs to the hounds.

  I was too busy watching Thordis with Short Eldgrim, making sure she kept him going in the right direction and avoided the fighting, so that I found myself in a herd of skittish horses, shoving them aside to keep Thordis and Short Eldgrim in sight.

  Then I was hit by the rump of one swirling, excited pony and slammed into ayurt. I heard the trellis bones of it crack and the commotion inside. Light flared as the door-curtain was flung back and someone hammered out shrill, angry words, a dark shadow against the light. I snarled and the woman spat at me; I showed her a fistful of sharp metal and she yelped and vanished back inside, shrieking.

  I had lost the others. Blinking, my night vision shattered, I moved on before any other yurt-dwellers reappeared with weapons. There was a wolf-howl up ahead, a sound I knew well; Finn had found his enemies.

  I came up on the nearest fire, where Vladimir's men had been huddled. A dark hump lay in the shadows beyond and I saw, as jog-trotted up, that it was one of the druzhina, a luckless sentry, fully-armoured and very dead.

  Shadows grunted and struggled; sparks flew, men cursed and slashed. A figure lunged away from the howling pack and ran towards me, though whether he came to attack or was unlucky to find me as he fled I did not know, nor care.

  I hit him as he came within arm's reach, a vicious backhand upswing that took the axe blade into his groin and launched him headlong, screaming. Then I knelt to look at him as he writhed and his heels drummed; no-one I knew, so one of the enemy. I heaved a sigh of relief at that and hacked his throat open, vowing to pay more attention.

  I turned back the fight round the fire and heard Ref Steinsson yell: 'Watch out for the big one . . .'

  Now I was paying attention and I saw him, a tall, muscular Slav with the face of a young boy scarcely bearded, who came leaping out of the firelight and straight at me, sword up and screaming as loud as he could, exactly as his best mate had probably taught him.

  His best mate, I was thinking, was lying at my feet with a second, bloody smile under his chin — b
ut if he had been there to advise, he would have told this giant Slav boy to hold his sword lower and not to swing so wildly.

  I stepped out of the way of the downward crash of that fat blade, spun on one foot and hit him with the axe on the lower back, so hard that I heard the crack of his backbone breaking and lost my balance, even as he arched once and went down with a scream. I scrambled up, frantic that someone else was coming up on me, spun round, axe slathering blood into the air in a ribbon of droplets.

  'It's me, Finn — watch what you are doing with that woodchopper, Orm.'

  He had a grin like a bear-trap, but his eyes were wary. I straightened from my fighting crouch and acknowledged him with a wave of the axe.

  'You are safe enough. Get to the boats.'

  'Too late,' growled Finn. 'They have fallen back and are between us and the boats.'

  A score of paces further on, the Oathsworn, panting and circling like dogs, waved weapons and taunts in the faces of Vladimir's men, who were shadows and pale blobs of faces in the dark. Behind them was the river and the boats we needed to escape — but we had neither found Thorgunna, or a way of getting to those boats.

  'We are finished,' someone said grimly.

  'Stow that,' Finn bellowed and spun his iron nail. 'We are not done yet.'

  It was not a convincing statement, for it would be moments only before Dobrynya recovered the courage of his men and made them realize there were only a handful facing them. Then they would come at us, Oathsworn fame or not; I saw men plant themselves more firmly, rolling their shoulders and touching amulets, for it was more than likely that they would die here.

  Then Gizur came up, huffing, with Gyrth lumbering like a dancing bear behind him.

  'We have found Thorgunna,' Gizur yelled and pointed.

  On the lip of the long, iced slope that ran down to the river, no more than a long jogtrot from us, a strug perched on wooden sledge-runners, staked to the ground for safety. Stacks and bundles showed where the gear waited to be loaded, so that it was light for the final, careful slither down the slope to the water. The crew had wisely made themselves scarce when armed men turned up and Vladimir had thought it a good place to use to shelter the sick wife of Kvasir.