The Oathsworn Series Books 1 to 3. Robert Low
I said. ‘If he had a name other than Halftroll, I never heard it uttered.’
She nodded, hugging – as always – the ruined Roman spear-shaft to her. ‘It is hard to lose friends,’ she agreed, sadly.
I took a slight breath, formed up and charged. ‘You would know. You have lost your mother and all your friends. You can never return to the village you came from. Not that you would wish to, I suppose, considering what they had planned.’
There was a pause and I wondered if I had gone too far, too soon, but she nodded, blank-faced. We walked on down towards the road that led back to the smoke-stained wooden sprawl of the town.
Behind, I could hear Gunnar Raudi and the others raucously toasting the stone, the carver, the helpers and the dead as was only right. Ahead, Olga walked, solid and ponderous, beside the tall, spare figure of Illugi, nodding as he spoke. On either side, the tawny-haired boy and girl, unaffected by the death of a father they had barely known, scampered and laughed in the spring sun like new lambs.
‘At my first bleed,’ Hild said suddenly, ‘my mother told me a secret that her mother told her. Then she gave me to the tanner’s wife. Not long afterwards, she offered herself to the forge mountain, as my grandmother had done, for it was expected.
‘They were not bad people in Koksalmi, but they believed in the power of the smiths. The village had been chosen, long before, to be the place where something great would happen, to ensure that the Old Gods survived for ever.’
‘The Vanir, you mean?’
‘Older still.’ She fell silent and I saw her knuckles whiten on the spear-shaft, so I tried to comfort her.
‘Still, you are safe now. You have faced the curse of the forge and are better for it.’
‘Better?’
Confused, I waved a wild hand. ‘When first we met you were … sick. Now you seem well again. Calmer. I am glad of it.’
We walked on in silence for a moment, then she turned and laid one hand on my arm. ‘Do you like me, Orm?’
Flustered, I felt my face flame. I started to stammer and saw the strangest thing in her eyes. Sadness. I stopped, unable to say anything.
She leaned closer to me. I felt the butterfly wing of a kiss on my cheek and then she pulled back. ‘You have been kind. But keep clear. Do not try to … love me. Or you will die.’
Her gaze was as sharp as the spear that had once graced the Roman shaft she held fiercely in both hands and, for a moment, I wondered if she would try to stick me with the nub end that was left. Then she whirled and dashed along the road in a flail of skirts. As she passed Illugi Godi and Olga, they looked back at me, both united in the surety that I had offended her in some way.
Not long after, as we came to the sea gate of the town, Olga gathered the purse Illugi gave her – Pinleg’s share – and her children and went off. Illugi Godi came to me and jerked his head at where the faint roars drifted; Bagnose was composing verses in a good skald saga for the dead of the forge mountain. ‘Should you not be there?’
‘I was tasked with looking after Hild,’ I replied moodily.
He smiled. ‘It seems our captive princess does not wish to be looked after,’ he replied. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ I answered sharply, then sighed. ‘I don’t understand women. Well, not this one, anyway. She seems to like me – then looked as if she’d stick me with that spear.’
‘She is a strange one,’ agreed Illugi, ‘even allowing for the wyrd of her life so far.’
‘Strange, too,’ I mused, ‘the way she babbled like a child when first we met. I could understand one word in five, if that – and only because it was like the Finn tongue, but different. She has a secret told to her by her mother and, it seems, told mother to daughter back into the mists. But she has no daughter herself and was so badly handled by Vigfus that it has addled her. She is more to be feared than ever, I am thinking.’
‘Yes,’ mused Illugi. ‘And the way she clutches the spear-shaft, like a child with a doll.’
We passed into the town proper, on to the wooden walkways between herds of huddled houses.
‘Martin the monk told me he found the girl through the writings of that Otmund,’ he went on, ‘the one who was made a saint and whose church we raided. He wrote about the villagers and their beliefs and managed to convert some of them.’
In which case he was a braver man than I, for I would not have argued with any of the people of Koksalmi. Not without an army at my back.
Illugi chuckled, but it seemed bitter. ‘Brave or stupid,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Those unconverted ran him and his followers off. I believe then that those who had stuck to the old gods took this god stone away, for they knew others like Otmund would come and seduce more villagers to their lies. The White Christ is winning.’
I looked sharply at him and saw his worried face. Then it cleared and he smiled.
‘But Martin believed that the girl would lead him to the Great Hoard somehow, being linked to the sword the smiths made for Attila. The stone, he reasoned, was not necessary.’
‘Martin is a rat,’ I spat, ‘and I wouldn’t trust him to tell me a dog’s hind leg was crooked. Anyway, Atil’s hoard is a tale for children.’
‘No,’ answered Illugi. ‘That part is true enough. When Atil was dead, never having been beaten in battle – because, it was said, of his fabulous sword – his men carried him into the steppe and howed him up in a burial mound made from all the silver taken from those he had conquered. They say it was so tall, snow formed on the top.’
There was silence while we both tried to wrap our heads round that monstrous idea of riches, but it was too much and made my head hurt. It all made my head hurt and I said so.
‘True,’ Illugi agreed, ‘That Christ priest, Martin, seems to be able to swallow it all down, though, but you are right about him being untrustworthy. He thought to cross Lambisson with a false trail using the god stone. Perhaps he wants the treasure for himself.’
I shook my head. Treasure of that sort did not interest Martin, that much I knew. The Spear of Destiny, as he called it: that was what Martin wanted. With that he would become a high priest in his religion, and convert even more to the Christ cause.
Illugi frowned when I spilled this out, but he nodded. ‘Aye, you have the right of it, I am thinking. He will be back after that shaft, so we must keep a close watch on it.’
‘On Hild,’ I spat, bitterly, ‘for she will not relinquish it without a struggle. It is some sort of talisman to her now.’
‘Perhaps so,’ Illugi mused, then frowned. ‘It is possible there is some Christ magic in it, a subtle, seidr sort of magic that will turn her to the Christ side. Still, a risk we must take if we are to keep her content, for she will not lead us to the hoard if she thinks we are being false with her.’
This sucked my breath away, said so matter-of-factly. Lead us to the hoard? She could no more lead us to a hoard of silver than I could kiss my own arse and I said so.
Illugi’s eyebrows went up. ‘Martin seemed certain of it,’ he answered.
‘Martin, we agreed, was a Loki-cunning, crook-tongued, sleekit-as-a-fox horse turd who could not be trusted to tell you a raven was black,’ I roared back at him, hardly able to countenance that he believed this.
‘He believed his Christ charm, the spear, was in the forge and he was right about that,’ Illugi answered mildly. ‘Have you noticed anything about that, young Orm?’
The wind having been sucked out from my sails, I floundered. ‘Noticed what?’
‘The spear-shaft that Hild will not relinquish. The wood is blackened; the rivets are rusted.’
‘It