The Prow Beast. Robert Low
the struggling column, grinding a way up the mountain pass road – but what we were about to do would not take long.
There was little ceremony. We climbed a little way, to where a flat stone sprawled up above the road and into the realm of the alfar; whom some call Lokke; men hissed now and then when something flickered at the edge of their vision, or when the sun glimmered in a certain way on water, for they knew that it was Lokke, the Playing Man, the alfar no-one ever saw properly – or wanted to.
I kept my heart on my wish and my head up to the sky, away from the glitter of unnatural eyes in the moving shadows. My business was with Odin.
I drew the sword – a good blade, but not the nicked one rescued from the Elk. That was Kvasir’s old blade and I would not be parted from that willingly, yet this was still a good sword which we had taken from the men we had killed near our rune stone and so a rich gift for Odin. I heard the men breathe out heavily, for it was known that the alfar did not care for iron, as I plunged it in the soft, brackened turf in front of the stone. Toki brought the limping stallion up to me.
It snuffled in the palm of my hand hopefully, but found nothing and had little time for the disappointment of it; I plunged a sharpened seax into the great pulse in its neck and heard it squeal and jerk, the iron stink of blood adding to the fear. It kicked and reared and Toki and I hung on to it, our weight forcing it still until the pulse of blood grew weaker and the stone and the sword blade dripped and clotted with it.
Men yelled out, fierce shouts of his name to draw Odin’s attention; Finn moved in and took the sharpened seax, began cutting off the rear haunches – all Odin wanted was the blood and the blade, he had little need of all the meat and the alfar needed none at all, nor clothing. Finn skinned it, too, waiting properly until I had made my wish aloud.
It was simple enough – a life for a life. Let everyone else survive this and take life from me, if one were needed. Men hoomed and nodded; I felt leaden at the end of it, for Odin always needed a life and there was never enough blood and steel to sate One-Eye.
‘So,’ Botolf said, ‘that was why you did not want to eat the horse. Deep thinking, Orm. I should have known better.’
‘A bad thing,’ growled Finn, ‘to bring your doom down on your own head.’
‘Randr Sterki will not stop until he is dead or we are,’ I answered; he knew why, above all the others and shrugged, unable to find the words to speak to me on it.
Abjorn stepped forward then, with a look and a nod to the men behind him.
‘Jarl Orm,’ he began. ‘We wish to take your Oath.’
I was dumbed by this; Finn grunted and found the words which were dammed up behind my teeth.
‘You are sworn already, to Jarl Brand,’ he pointed out and Abjorn shifted uncomfortably, with another glance to the men behind him for reassurance.
‘He gave us to Jarl Orm,’ he countered stubbornly. ‘And Jarl Brand is almost brother to Jarl Orm.’
‘He lent you,’ I offered, gentle as a horse-whisperer, not wishing to anger him. ‘Not gave.’
‘For all that,’ Abjorn pushed, his chin jutting out. ‘We have all agreed to ask – Rovald, Rorik Stari, Kaelbjorn Rog, Myrkjartan, Uddolf and myself.’
As he said their names, the men stepped forward, determined as stones rolling downhill.
‘This is foolish,’ Finn said, pausing in his flaying of the horse. ‘Jarl Brand will be angered by it and with Jarl Orm for agreeing to it. And what if they come to quarrel, what then? Who will you fight for?’
‘We will leap that stream when we reach it,’ Abjorn replied. Finn threw up his hands; a gobbet of fat flew off the end of the seax and splattered on the turf.
I knew why they wanted to take the Oath. They needed it. They had heard that Odin favoured the Oathsworn, held his hand over them and with all that snapped at their heels they needed to know that hand cradled them, too.
So I nodded and, stumbling like eager colts with the words of it, with the stink of fresh blood and the gleam of blot-iron in their eyes, they took it.
We swear to be brothers to each other, bone, blood and steel, on Gungnir, Odin’s spear we swear, may he curse us to the Nine Realms and beyond if we break this faith, one to another.
Afterwards, laden with horse meat – the head left on the stone for the birds to pick – we went back down to the path and hurried to catch up with the others.
Abjorn and the new-sworn men were cheerful, chaffering one to the other and with Botolf and even Toki, when they would not usually have looked twice at a scrawny thrall boy. They were so happy I felt sorry for them, knowing how the smell of blood and iron appeals to One-Eye even as the happy plans of men do not.
An hour later, the ulfhednar caught us.
I did not hear or see them at all, having my shoulder into the back of the rearmost wagon, my whole world taken up by the pothole the left rear wheel had sunk into and not wanting to have to unload it to get it out again. The rest of the column was further ahead, round a bend and out of sight.
So, with Botolf alongside, Finn and Kuritsa on either rear wheel and little Toki trying to get the sagging-weary horses to pull, we strained and cursed and struggled with it. Somewhere up ahead, round the next bend, the others laboured on.
‘Give them some whip!’ bawled Finn.
‘The fucking trail is too hard for this,’ Botolf grunted out and he was right; I had no breath to argue with him anyway.
Then Toki yelled out, a high, piping screech and we all stopped and turned, sweating and panting, to see the four men come round the bend behind us in the trail. It was moot who was more surprised by it.
‘Odin’s arse…’
Finn sprang for The Godi, sheathed and in the wagon; Botolf hurled after his axe, which was in the same place, but all I had was my seax and that was handy, snugged across my lap. But Kuritsa, who had said he had been a hunter in his own land, showed that he had been a warrior, too.
Three of the men wore oatmeal clothing, carried spears and axes and shields, but the fourth was big as a bull seal and had the great, rain-sodden bearcoat that marked him. He whirled and gestured; one of the others started to run back and Kuritsa sprang up on the top of one wheel, balanced and shot – the man screamed and pitched forward.
The bearcoat roared at another, then hefted his shield in the air, caught it by one edge and slung it, whirling in a one-handed throw that sent it spinning at us, like a wooden platter hurled by a woman gone past reasonable argument. Kuritsa, nocking another arrow, did not see it until it hit him, knocking him off the wheel before he could make a sound; he hit heavily and lay gasping for breath and bleeding.
We watched the messenger vanish round the bend and the bearcoat straightened slowly, hefting the bearded axe in one hand. The last man stood slightly behind him, licking his lips.
‘I am Thorbrand Hrafnsson,’ the bearcoat bawled out in a hoarse voice, spreading his arms wide, the great tangled mass of hair and beard matted so that his mouth was barely visible. His eyes were two beasts peering out of a wood.
‘I am a slayer of men. I am a son of the wolf and the bear,’ he roared.
‘I,’ said the man with him, ‘am not eager for this.’
He backed away, shield up but sword hand held high and empty. Thorbrand never even turned round when he spat a greasy glob of disdain.
‘I am known as a killer and a hard man, from Dyfflin to Skane,’ he bellowed, pointing the axe at us. ‘I am favoured by Thor. And you are Finn Bardisson, known as Horsehead, the one the skalds say fears no-one. And you are Orm Bear Slayer, who leads the Oathsworn and who found all the silver of the world. I see you.’
‘You will not see us for long,’ said