The White Raven by Robert Low Read Free Book Online Page B

smeared out an ugly laugh. Klerkon snapped the eye contact with me, straightened a little and sighed.
    'Perhaps a trade partnership was too much to expect,' he said softly and the smile was already a fading memory. 'If we cannot join, then I have it more in the way of you telling me all you know and me sparing those you hold in regard.'
    '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