Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War) (33 page)

“Baresarker!” Ein smacked his fist to his chest.

Snorri spared me a grin. “I’m starting to understand the hero and devil of Aral Pass!” His sealskins were ripped wide across his hip, exposing an ugly wound. Another deep cut on the muscle mounded around the join of shoulder and neck bled copiously.

My free hand started to shake uncontrollably. I looked around the room. The dead lay strewn. Around the hearth they lay in heaps. Arne sat on the table behind me, deathly pale, his cheek ripped so badly I could see through to the rotten teeth, half of them smashed out of his jawbone. The spreading pool of crimson around him told me that dentistry was the last of his worries. A wound to his thigh had cut the artery deep in the meat of him.

“Jal.” Arne offered me a broken grin, his words blurred by the face wound. He slumped down, almost graceful. “It was a great shot, though, wasn’t it . . . Jal?”

“I—” My voice cracked. “A great shot, Arne. The best.” But the Dead-Eye was past hearing. Past everything now.

“Snorri ver Snagason!” A roar issuing from the doorway beyond the hearth.

“Sven Broke-Oar!” Snorri shouted in return. He hefted his axe and approached the fire. “You must have known I’d be back. For my wife, my boy, my vengeance. Why would you even sell me?”

“Oh, I knew.” The Broke-Oar even sounded pleased about it, which, now that the strange sense of dissociation was fading, brought all my fears back from whatever corners of my mind the battle madness had driven them into. “It was hardly fair to rob you of your fight now, was it? And we of the Hardanger do love our gold. And of course my new masters have expenses. The elixir they need for the dead in these cold climes requires oils from Araby, and those are hard to find. A man must trade good coin for such exotics.”

Even dazed I recognized the taunt. Telling Snorri he’d financed this horror with his own flesh and failure. Whatever was said of the Broke-Oar, none called him stupid.

Ein, Tuttugu, and I went to stand at Snorri’s side. Another chamber lay beyond the doorway, most of it out of our line of sight. A Red Viking lay half in one room, half in the other, his head split wide. Ein tugged the spear from his brother—Thrir if the order had held true.

“There’s more to it than that, Broke-Oar. You could have killed me and still had nine-tenths and more of your blood gold.” Snorri paused as if struggling to voice his question. “Where’s my wife? My boy? If you’ve harmed—” He snapped his jaw shut on the words, the muscles in his cheeks working.

Tuttugu hastened to bind Snorri’s side with strips from a cloak, Ein holding Snorri back as the warrior made to advance. Snorri relented and let them—the shoulder wound would bleed the strength from him soon if not staunched.

“There’s more to it than that,” Snorri repeated.

“It’s true, Snorri.” A touch of sadness in the Broke-Oar’s voice. Despite his reputation the man sounded . . . regal, a king declaiming from his throne. Sven Broke-Oar had the voice of a hero and a sage, and he wound it around us like a spell. “I’ve fallen. You know it. I know it. I bent in the wind. But Snorri? Snorri ver Snagason still stands tall, pure as autumn snow, as if he stepped from the sagas to save us all. And whatever else I might be, Snorri, I am a Viking first. The sagas must be told, the hero must have his chance to stand against the long winter. Vikings we—born to hold against trolls, frost giants, even the sea. Even the gods themselves.

“Come, Snorri. Let’s make an end of this. Just you and me. Let your friends bear witness. I stand ready.”

Snorri started forwards.

“No!” I grabbed hold of his arm and heaved back with whatever strength I had left. The curse flared between us, the resulting blast shredding his sleeve and throwing me back across the table, afterimages of ink and sunlight overwriting my vision. The scent of burned air filled my nostrils, a sharp astringency that took me back to that street in Vermillion, running as if all Satan’s devils were at my heels, the cobbles cracking open behind me.

“What in Hel?” Snorri spun in my direction.

“I know—” Only a whisper came. I coughed and spoke again. “I know bastards.”

Ein bent and picked up the discarded shield. Tuttugu took another two from a display on the wall.

“These are your last moments, Broke-Oar!” Snorri shouted, and, bearing the shields high and low, Tuttugu and Ein stepped towards the doorway.

Crossbow bolts hammered into the shields in the instant Snorri’s guardians crossed the archers’ line of sight. Snorri unleashed a wordless roar and, pushing between his companions, launched himself into the next room.

I followed, still a touch dazed. If I’d had my wits about me I would have sat down with Arne and played dead.

Sven Broke-Oar stood at the far side of a chamber smaller than the one we’d come from, dwarfing the three crossbow-men beside him. I won’t say he made Snorri look small, but he sure as hell stopped him looking biggest. The man’s mother must have slept with trolls. Handsome trolls, though. With his great red-gold beard plaited across his chest and his hair flowing free, the Broke-Oar looked every inch a Viking king, down to the gold chasing at the edges of the scarred iron breastplate he had on. He held a fine axe in one hand, the iron buckler on his other about the size of a dinner plate, smooth and thick.

Ein veered towards the two men on the left; Tuttugu charged the one to the right. Sven Broke-Oar advanced to meet Snorri.

There’s not much you can do about an axe swinging your way with a man’s strength behind it. Killing the axe’s owner before he completes his blow is your best option. With a sword you can impale your foe. But if like your foe you’re armed with an axe, then “swing faster and hope” seems to be the best advice on offer. And of course to swing at your man you need to be a certain distance off—exactly the same distance he needs you to be at in order to swing at you.

Snorri had a different solution. He reached out before him, axe extended, running faster than is possible for any man building for a swing. The turn of speed spoiled the Broke-Oar’s timing, his cutting edge arriving a split second too late, the haft of his axe just below the blade hammered into Snorri’s raised shoulder, while Snorri’s axe smashed into the Broke-Oar’s neck, not with the cutting edge but bracketing the man’s throat with the horns of the blade.

That should have been an end to it. A narrow piece of metal driven against a throat by a powerful man. Somehow, though, the Broke-Oar slammed his buckler into the side of Snorri’s head and fell back, clasping his neck. Both men should have been down, but instead they reeled, unsteady on their feet, then came together like bears, grappling.

Ein had killed one of his two opponents and now wrestled the second, both men clutching knives, trying to drive them into each other’s faces whilst stopping the other man doing the same. Tuttugu had killed his foe, but the Red Viking had loosed his dagger before Tuttugu split his head. I couldn’t see how bad the wound was, but the speed with which the blood spilled over the fat man’s hands where he clutched his belly said it couldn’t be good.

The two giants stood, fingers interlocked, straining one against the other. Purple in the face and spraying crimson with each explosive exhalation, the Broke-Oar forced Snorri down, inch by inch. Muscle heaped, veins bulged fit to burst, both men groaned and laboured for breath. It seemed bones must give—that in a sudden snap the immense forces would shatter limbs—but all that happened was that by degrees, pumping blood past the bindings on shoulder and side, Snorri gave, until with a swift release he was on his knees, the Broke-Oar still pressing down upon him.

Tuttugu took one dripping hand from his belly and bent with agonizing slowness to retrieve his axe. The Broke-Oar, without even seeming to have looked, kicked behind him and broke the Undoreth’s knee, sending Tuttugu sprawling with a scream of pain. Snorri tried to surge up and got a leg beneath him, but with a roar the Broke-Oar drove him back down.

Ein and the Hardanger man were still rolling on the floor, both cut now. I looked at my sword, already scarlet from tip to pommel.
That’s Snorri there.
I had to say it to myself. Companion through innumerable miles, through weeks of hardship, dangers . . . The Broke-Oar pressed him lower, both men howling animal threats. A sudden twist and Sven Broke-Oar had Snorri’s throat in his huge right paw, their other hands still locked, Snorri’s unburdened hand trying to tear the fingers from his neck.

The Broke-Oar was exposed. Head bowed. “Christ, Jalan, just do it!” I had to shout the words at myself. And, reluctant at first, picking up speed, I ran towards them, sword overhead. I’d not wanted to hit the man in the tower, not even with an arrow from a hundred yards off. Sven Broke-Oar I wanted to die, right then, right there, and if it had to be me to do it . . .

I brought both arms down, scything my blade through the air, and somehow in that instant the Broke-Oar tore his off hand from Snorri’s grasp and interposed his buckler. The shock of it rang through my sword as if I’d hit stone, shaking it from my grip. One swift lunge, pushing Snorri over backwards with the hand still locked to his throat, and the giant punched me just below the heart, a combined impact of broad knuckles and the edge of his buckler. The breath left me in a wordless whoosh, ribs snapped, and I fell as if hamstrung.

From the floor I saw the Broke-Oar flick off the buckler and lock his second hand around Snorri’s throat. I managed to draw the breath that Snorri couldn’t. The air wheezed into me like acid poured into my lungs, ribs grating around their fractures.

Sven Broke-Oar started to shake Snorri, slowly at first, then more fiercely as the younger man’s face darkened with the strangulation. “You should have stayed gone, Snagason. The North has nothing else like me. It takes more than a boy to bring me down.”

I could see the life leaving Snorri, arms falling away limp, and still all I could manage was the next breath. Ein had fallen away from his enemy, both of them lying spent. Tuttugu lay in a spreading pool of his own blood, watching but beyond helping.

“Time to die, Snorri.” And the muscles bunched in the Broke-Oar’s forearms, tightening a grip that could snap an oar.

Somewhere, unseen, the sun set.

Snorri lifted his arms. His hands closed on Sven Broke-Oar’s wrists, and where they touched the Hardanger man’s flesh it turned black. A snarl twisted the Broke-Oar’s lips as Snorri raised his head and pulled the fingers from his neck. A sudden, vicious downward yank and both the Broke-Oar’s forearms snapped, the bone jutting from crimson gore. A backhanded blow and he fell, sprawling beside Tuttugu.

“You?” Snorri’s voice blending with Aslaug’s as he stood. “It’s me the North should walk in fear of.” He held the discarded buckler now, nothing but darkness in his eyes.

“Better.” From his place on the ground Sven Broke-Oar managed a laugh. “Better. You might even stand a chance. Make a ruin of them, Snorri, send them howling back to Hel!”

Snorri knelt beside Sven Broke-Oar, leaning in.

“They put a fear in me, Snorri, gods damn them. Gods damn them all.”

“Where’s Freja?” Snorri took Broke-Oar around the neck, pounding his head against the floor. “My son? Where is he?” Each question roared into the man’s face.

“You know!” Broke-Oar spat out a bloody answer.

“You’ll tell me!” Snorri set his thumbs against the Broke-Oar’s eyes.

I fainted at that point, just as Snorri started to press and Broke-Oar let out a scream that was half laughter.

Those dark and insensible moments were the only period of comfort I had in that black fort. Washed away too soon by the passage of what could only have been seconds.

“Time to die, Broke-Oar.” Snorri bent low over the fallen giant, hands crimson.

A wet red splutter, then, “Burn the dead—”

Sven Broke-Oar had time for no more. Snorri crushed his skull with a sharp blow of the heavy buckler.

“Snorri.” I couldn’t manage above a whisper, but he looked up, the darkness fading from his eyes, leaving them clear and ice-blue.

“Jal!” Despite his wounds he was at my side in a moment, seizing the hood of my winter coat, deaf to my protests. For one moment I thought he was going to help me, but instead he dragged me across to lie beside Ein.

The Red Viking next to Ein looked dead enough, but Snorri took the knife from the man’s hand and cut his throat with it just to be sure. “Alive?” He turned to Ein and slapped him. Ein groaned and opened his eyes. “Good. What can you do for him, Jal?”

“Me?” I lifted an arm. I don’t know why—perhaps to ward off the suggestion—and found that I’d been stabbed, high in the bicep. “Hell!” Rolling over was an agony, but it let me confirm another flash of memory from the red haze of my battle—I’d been cut on the thigh too. “I’m worse than Ein is.” With the injuries I’d taken without knowing or remembering them, it was almost true. But Ein had a stab wound in his chest. One that bubbled and sucked with each breath out and in. The killing kind.

“He’s worse, Jal. And you can’t heal yourself. We know that.”

“I can’t heal anyone without half-dying myself. It’d kill me.” Though dying would at least stop each breath being a torture. My side had been filled with broken glass, I was sure of it.

“The magic is stronger here, Jal; you must feel it trying to break out? I can almost see it glowing in you.” An edge of pleading in his voice. Not for himself, never that, but for the last of his countrymen.

“Jesus! You people will be the death of me.” And I slapped my palm to Ein’s stab wound—harder than necessary.

In an instant my hand flared, too bright to look at, and every ache I had became an agony, my ribs something beyond comprehension. I snatched my hand back almost immediately, panting and cursing, blood and drool dripping from my mouth.

“Good. Now Tuttugu!” And I felt myself dragged. I watched through one eye as Ein struggled to sit up, poking at the unbroken but bloodstained skin where the knife had slid beneath his ribs.

Snorri set me beside Tuttugu and we met each other’s gaze, both of us too weak for talking. The Viking, who had been pale to start with, now lay as white as frost. Snorri pulled Tuttugu around, moving him without effort despite his girth. He tugged Tuttugu’s hand clear of the stomach wound and drew in an involuntary breath.