Crowbone by Robert Low Read Free Book Online Page B

the men forward, signalling for three to act as horse-holders. Ulf stayed mounted, which annoyed Ogmund since it made Ulf look like the leader. Ogmund would have liked to command him to get off, but knew that would look petty. He wanted to get back on his own mount but was not sure he had the strength of leg to spring up on it in his ringmail and felt the crushing despair of knowing there had been a time when he would have done it without thinking.
    Too old, he thought grimly. Everyone knows it and Ulf grows impatient to be in my place.
    The figure on the hill was suddenly close, so that Ogmund was startled at how he had daydreamed a mournful way to this point without realising it. He shook himself like a dog to sharpen his wits and stared at the man on the hill.
    He was big and wore a helmet with ringmail covering the front of it so that none of his face could be seen at all; the eyes were no more than points of light in the cave of his shadowed face. It had gilded eyebrows and a raised crest and was altogether a fine helm, which had been greased and oiled carefully. The wearer had a long coat of ringmail, too, was thick-waisted, but not fat, had a shield slung on his back and one hand resting lightly on the hilt of a sword in a tooled leather sheath – though the hilt of the weapon was plain iron and sharkskin grip, without decoration.
    All of it only increased the rise of Ogmund’s hackles. A little raiding man might well have a fine helmet, but he would not have bothered so much in the care of it, having almost certainly stolen it in the first place. Nor did this one stand like a little raiding man. He stood as if he owned the ground his feet were on.
    ‘Who are you?’ Ogmund demanded.
    ‘Gudrod Eiriksson from Orkney.’ The voice was metal-muffled, inhuman and that rocked a few back on their heels as much as the name. Bloodaxe’s son? Here in Mann?
    ‘Orkney does not rule here now,’ Ulf sneered.
    ‘Not now,’ replied Gudrod easily, ‘but soon enough again, maybe.’
    Another man appeared from the trees, ring-mailed and armed, moving quietly to the left and slightly behind Gudrod. He had a sharp face and a weasel smile, hardly softened at all by the trim line of his beard. His nose was broad and spread out, as if he had been hit with a shovel and it fascinated Ogmund.
    A third slid out, wearing a red tunic and green breeks, both so faded they held only a distant laugh of colour. He had a sword thrust through a ring in his belt but wore no armour at all, not even a helmet, and his face was round and boy-smooth, unmarked by war or weather so that the black hair which framed it made the youth look like an angel Ogmund had seen painted on the rough wall of the big church in Holmtun. Yet this angel moved strangely; like a padding wolf.
    ‘You robbed a church,’ Ulf went on and Ogmund finally had had enough. The casual trio, the whole raid, had him ruffled as a wet cat and Ulf taking on the mantle of leader here was more than enough.
    ‘When I need you to speak, Ulf Bjornsson,’ he said, low and harsh as grinding quernstones, ‘I will find a dog and have it bark.’
    Someone snickered at the back and Ulf jerked his reins so hard the horse threw up its head in protest and scattered bit-foam.
    ‘You lead here?’ demanded Gudrod and Ogmund nodded. The man with the squashed nose laughed, a high, thin sound. Ogmund saw his top lip stick to his teeth; that sign of nerves gave him a little comfort. He realised, suddenly, that the man had no bone in his nose, which gave it the look.
    ‘There was no harm done in the church,’ Gudrod went on easily in that hollow-helmet voice. ‘It was a misunderstanding. We sought enlightenment only, not riches. A priest decided that we were not Christian enough for him. And here is me, baptised and everything, as fine a Christian as yourself, whoever you are.’
    ‘Ogmund Liefsson, of Jarl Godred’s Chosen,’ Ogmund replied automatically, cursing himself for his lack of