Odin's Ravens (Descendants Saga Book 2) Read online

  "Be careful of the rocks," Yngvar said as he now leapt forward.

  His enemy was already rising up, water spilling from his face as his hair and beard hung limp. But it was all the advantage Yngvar needed. His sword struck for the enemy's neck. He pulled away, instead causing the sword to slice off his right cheek and ear.

  The cry of pain echoed through the woods. The stream continued its happy gurgle as Yngvar let his full weight fall atop his enemy, pushing him under the water. Blood flowed away in ribbons as the man struggled.

  "Sorry, I can't stand any longer," Yngvar said as he held the man face down in the stream. It was true. His ankle throbbed with hot pain, eased only by the cold water. It was a relief to be off of it, lying atop this man as he drowned. The enemy's mail shirt was a great aid in this as well, for its added weight kept the enemy pinned.

  The thrashing ceased after what seemed too long. Yngvar at last relented, sitting up to his waist in gently flowing water. He saw his attacker had caught his foot between two rocks, and remained there even in death.

  "And that's why we don't fight in streams," Yngvar said. He slid his hands across the man, searching for anything that might reveal more about his identity. Yet he had traveled lightly, with no pack or anything beyond his war gear. He pulled a silver amulet of Thor's hammer from the man's neck, then looped it atop his own.

  Horns sounded in the distance. These strangers had mentioned a ship. Had more of their number now landed? Had Thora gotten back in time to warn Jarl Alrik?

  The insistent blares were indistinct and muffled within the forest. Yngvar struggled to stand, but found he could only hop to the muddy banks. He crashed against the wall of dirt and slid down into its cool wetness. He had run into the forest carried by fear and desperation that had now been replaced with the stark realization that he was alone in the woods with enemies surrounding him.

  He would have to rest, regain his strength, then hop out to the field where at least he would have a chance for friends to find him. When he was ready, any sturdy branch could be a crutch. For now he packed cold mud around his swelling ankle and closed his eyes. Black bears roamed these woods, and while seldom encountered at the edge of the woods, it would be just his luck to have one appear.

  The horns sounded again, closer and more urgent. He did not recognize any pattern to them. Perhaps these were the enemy closing in, and they found the man impaled with the sax, who would then point to the forest. From there, the enemy would find him. He was all out of tricks and fight.

  He slumped down against the bank and prayed the enemy would pass him by.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The voices woke Yngvar. He did not even realize he had slept. He waited, not hearing anything more, then relaxed again.

  Sunlight had shifted west and so the forest now was in deeper shadow. The greens and yellows had lost their brilliance and became browns and grays. The cool stream rippled merrily over the corpse of the enemy face down in its clear water. The man's flesh was now pallid gray in the twilight. The other corpse was a gray hump lying half in the stream, his shield like a platter beneath him. Yngvar enjoyed the forest, but not at night. It became a treacherous world of elves and other spirits. The corpses of his victims would bring evil to him.

  Another voice and a cracking twig warned Yngvar the voices had not been remnants of a dream. They mumbled to each other, irritation evident in their scratchy tones. If only he had not thrown his sax away. His long sword lay beside him in the muck. The blade would be scaled with rust by morning, but for now it was a dull gleam that gave him a measure of confidence. He wrapped his muddy hand around its leather grip and gently dragged it closer.

  "It's darker than a fucking cave," said one gruff voice. "Let him sit till tomorrow. Come on, let's go."

  "You know he's sitting?" asked another voice. "He could be dead."

  Of course! Yngvar sat up straighter and called out.

  "I'm not dead! Over here, you fools!"

  Thorfast's white hair was still brilliant in the dim light. Bjorn was a giant shadow behind him, his ax slung across his shoulder. Both stood atop the bank, and Yngvar smiled at them upside down.

  "I got so bored waiting for you that I fell asleep."

  Thorfast leapt down beside him, followed by a more ponderous jump from his cousin Bjorn. They silently looked over the two bodies, Bjorn prodding the man on the shore with his foot.

  "Two dead and one crippled," Thorfast said, hands on his hips. Through the gloom he saw his best friend's eyebrow cock. "Feeling like a show-off today?"

  "You found the one with my sax in his leg?"

  "Cut a big vein," Bjorn said, crouching down to flip over the dead body. "He was half bled to death."

  "Alasdair and a few others are with him," Thorfast said, putting his hands on his hips. "So, great warrior, would it bother you to stand?"

  Yngvar straightened his leg to show the mud packed on it. The soft boot was tight around his ankle. "You'll probably have to cut it off. It must've swollen up like a walrus belly. I ran on it too hard."

  "Shouldn't have done that." Thorfast crouched by his foot and pried back the boot. Yngvar hissed with a sharp pain as his flesh moved beneath Thorfast's searching fingers. "Well, better leave it in the boot for now. You tripped?"

  "No, I thought I'd make the fight more challenging if I broke my ankle first."

  Thorfast eased him onto his feet. Bjorn dropped his interest in the corpses and helped. His cousin was a year younger than Yngvar, but stood nearly a head taller. He was blessed with prodigious shoulders and a deep chest. If only the hair of his thin beard would grow thicker, he would easily pass for a much older man. He scooped an arm under Yngvar.

  "Cousin, this was some fine work. You'll have a good story for us back at the hall."

  "These were all the raiders?" Yngvar asked. "They talked about a ship."

  "Seems you slew them all today," Thorfast said. He and Bjorn struggled to lift him over the bank. "A ship was spotted heading out to sea. Just these three are all we've found."

  "The way Jarl Alrik has us running around you'd think it was Ragnarok," Bjorn said. "We didn't think to check here until later."

  "Didn't Thora tell you where I was?"

  Neither Bjorn nor Thorfast answered. She was a nice girl, but perhaps less smart than Yngvar had assumed. Could he ask more from a girl who tried to take a cat for a walk?

  Their trek out of the woods was longer than Yngvar expected. He had actually gone deeper than he had thought, and by the time they spilled out to the field, the western horizon was lit with nothing more than an orange stripe.

  Bjorn shuddered as they paused away from the tree line then kissed the amulet of Thor's hammer around his neck. "Glad to be out of there. Something was watching us."

  "Elves," Thorfast said with a chuckle. But Bjorn did not smile, only shook his head as if clearing the thought of elves from his mind.

  They found Alasdair waiting alone, a small figure in the dark of the rise where Yngvar had rolled his ankle. The clear-skinned, copper-haired lad smiled at them as they approached. He held Yngvar's sax in his right hand, pointing it toward the grass.

  "Where did everyone go?" Thorfast asked.

  "They rushed the prisoner back to Jarl Alrik's hall. It seemed he might not live long enough to tell his story."

  "And they left you here?" Bjorn asked. Alasdair shrugged at the question. He had eyes only for Yngvar, a beatific smile brightening his face.

  "Lord Yngvar," he said, raising the sax to him as if presenting it to a king. "I pulled this from the leg of your enemy. You'll be glad to know he cried out in pain when I did."

  From another it would seem like mockery, but Yngvar understood Alasdair held him in reverence. Even though he had spared Alasdair's life and enslaved him, he had granted the boy his freedom. Moreover, Alasdair had saved Yngvar's life more than once and Yngvar felt indebted to the lad. Still, he could not be broken of the habit of referring to Yngvar as a lord. It seemed to rankle some
men, but Alasdair never noticed.

  Yngvar accepted the sax with all the courtesy he could muster while being supported upright. "I thought the White Christ was against hurting others?"

  Alasdair shrugged again. "We are all sinners, lord."

  The journey back to the hall took enough time for Yngvar to recount his story from the beginning. He would have to tell it again before the night was done, for Jarl Alrik would need to know. Then when the drinking started, dozens of others would want to know more detail. It would become a well-worn rut before two days had passed.

  Jarl Alrik made his stronghold atop a hill that rose from the end of a knife-shaped fjord. Cliffs and hidden rocks made treacherous passage for men who did not know the waters. Jarl Alrik, being a hersir over many surrounding jarls, ran a primarily military camp where hundreds of men served and a half-dozen ships made their harbor. As they approached at night, torches lit up the area around the hall. It was a long, dark building with fresh thatch that still glowed with the final light of day. A splattering of stars glimmered in the purple sky above the roof, and white smoke poured out the top. On the slight breeze, Yngvar caught the sweet scent of wood. His stomach rumbled with hunger, not having eaten since the morning.

  They were met at the outskirts of the dozens of buildings, mostly barracks and store houses, where four men rushed to aid them. Yngvar ended up being carried up the hill, resting in a cloak that the four men carried between them. The swaying was relaxing but short-lived as they arrived at Alrik's hall. More men greeted them, everyone murmuring excitedly. The formalities of leaving weapons outside the hall complete, Yngvar's new care-takers lifted him out of the makeshift sling and carried him inside.

  He was set upon a bench. Thorfast, Bjorn, and Alasdair joined, standing beside him. Together they informally called themselves the descendants of the wolf in honor of Yngvar and Bjorn's grandfather, Ulfrik Ormsson. When united like this, they were a formidable presence of strength and youthful arrogance. Yngvar enjoyed it, even if it meant little in the real world of politics and alliances.

  The hall was full of people, mostly the lined and hard faces of Alrik's warriors and personal hirdmen. They nodded approvingly at Yngvar, even though none of them had yet heard his tale. Had they expected him to have survived? None had come for him but for his fellow wolves--such is what they liked to think of themselves. Any man with an injured ankle pursued into the woods by two heavily armored men would have been assumed killed. Perhaps that explained both their admiration and their reluctance to search for him. They had figured him dead and were amazed he had lived.

  Jarl Alrik sat at the high table with his hirdmen flanking him. Given the state of alarm, men still wore their mail armor. Alrik himself was Yngvar's ideal, a strong man with a sense of justice and a hunger for adventure. His eyes were clear and steady, his muscles thick and tense. Though gray streaked his hair, it was still full, and his beard was braided down to his chest. He smiled to Yngvar and extended an arm coiled with gold rings to point at the floor.

  The spearman who Yngvar had struck with his sax lay at the foot of the high table, his eyes staring blankly into the otherworld. His skin was the color of ash. His leg was bound with bloody cloth. Bloody handprints decorated his shirt. Did this man go to Odin's hall where he would one day face Yngvar again? The thought was sobering, for many enemies were already awaiting him there and he was not yet even twenty years old.

  "A fine day's work for you," Alrik said. "This one died cursing your name. But not before we pried his story from him."

  One of Alrik's hirdmen still had dried blood on both hands up to his elbows. He gave a wicked smile. "Just had to pull on the open cut a bit to make him talk."

  Yngvar imagined what tearing the wound would feel like and shuddered.

  "Lord Alrik," Yngvar began. "I've been told only three men came ashore. Is this true?"

  Alrik nodded. "Many remained on their ship, but they had a start on us and slipped away. I suspect they will linger close by and try again. I will catch them soon enough. But first we would all hear your tale."

  Yngvar glanced at his fellows, both Thorfast and Bjorn smiling proudly. Licking his lips, Yngvar started from Thora asking for help with her cat and ended when at last he was found by the stream. Throughout the telling, men leaned forward, their eyes reflecting the hearth fire that glowed at the center of the room. Even Alrik's slaves and servants paused to listen. Yngvar never considered himself much of a storyteller. The magic of words was Thorfast's gift. Yet tonight he owned his audience and captivated them with tales of his narrow escapes.

  When finished, men folded their arms in satisfaction. Alrik leaned back on his bench, both hands set upon his knees. He had closed his eyes throughout the telling as if imagining what Yngvar had described. Now he opened them.

  "Truly the gods favored you this day," he said. "The price of a twisted ankle is nothing for the glory you've earned for yourself."

  Yngvar lowered his head, acknowledging his jarl's praise. The rest of the hall pounded their tables or stamped the dirt floor to show their agreement. Bjorn gave him a firm punch to the shoulder.

  "They knew who I was," Yngvar said. "And now I understand they have come for me. But why?"

  Alrik's smile hung open in surprise. Yngvar did not know what value he represented to risk so much. Seeming to recognize Yngvar's confusion, Alrik folded his strong arms and gave him a fatherly smile.

  "For one with such a fine mind for battle, you are naive in so many other ways. Have the events of last summer fallen from your mind so soon?" Alrik cocked his head and looked toward the rafters of his great hall. "Ah, to be so young again. Nothing to fill your thoughts but where to find your next meal and next woman."

  Laughter echoed through the hall, and Yngvar felt his face warm. He glanced at Thorfast, who was equally flustered. Bjorn and Alasdair did not seem to get the jest.

  Alrik slapped his knee. "You left your sword in Erik Blood-Axe's leg, you damn fool! You did not kill him. So what would you expect? There is a generous bounty on your life."

  Yngvar's heart flipped in his chest. "Bounty?"

  "Yes," Alrik said. "He will pay a hundred pounds of silver for you dead, and two hundred for you alive. That's what this one said, and I believe him." Alrik extended his foot toward the corpse on the floor, as if pointing with his hand would do the dead man too much honor. "Word has spread everywhere now that winter is done. You're worth quite a bit."

  Yngvar swallowed hard.

  Thorfast snorted. "Erik can't pay that much. He is a broken man."

  "You know so much?" Alrik asked, puffing laughter. "Do you know that his wife is the daughter of Gorm the Old, king of the Danes? Do you know the Danes hate us? They even claim our lands as their own? Erik can get the silver if he wishes. His wife's father would be glad to make mischief in Norway. But here's more."

  Alrik paused and let his scolding sink into Yngvar, who now suddenly felt like a field mouse hiding from a hawk. He had to turn aside in embarrassment.

  "Your bounty has been doubled," Alrik said. "Erik's son, Gamle, will pay his father's ransom again to any man bringing you to him first. Apparently he wants to cut off your legs before sending you on to his father."

  "Erik has a son?" Yngvar straightened up at the news. He and his fellow wolves all looked at each other in shock. "We spent a whole summer with Erik and never once heard of his sons."

  "I'm certain Erik shared all the details of his life with you," Alrik said, again to more laughter. "But somehow he failed to tell you his eldest sons fostered with another during your short time in his service. In fact, his oldest son was recently killed, making Gamle the eldest. Erik has two more sons and a daughter as well, all young. And I hear the bitch queen Gunnhild is fat with another child."

  "He's a busy man," Bjorn whispered.

  "Yes," Alrik said. "There will be a long line of descendants who will hate you, and all of them will call the king of Denmark their grandfather. Your life is in danger as long as any
of them live."

  The hall sharpened to just the point of dirt floor in front of Yngvar. His heavily scarred back tingled with the memory of Erik's lash. Had he only killed him that night.

  Now he was forever in peril, and a danger to everyone around him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Three weeks had passed and Yngvar was still confined to sitting on his pallet in the barracks and resting his ankle. The healer kept it wrapped between two blocks of ash wood. This both stabilized his ankle and tapped the healing powers of ash wood. He stared at it now, leaning against the wall and alone in the empty barracks. It did not seem to be healing faster, though now he could walk on it without too much pain. Perhaps in one more week he could resume living again.

  Everyone was away on their duties, either helping in the fields, collecting firewood, patrolling, or drilling. Today was Thorfast's day to test Alasdair on his shield techniques. Yngvar smiled at the thought of that tiny boy lost behind a giant shield. He expected Alasdair to return bruised and Thorfast to return frustrated. He did not know why either of them bothered, as Alasdair was never going to grow large enough to be the front man in a shield wall.

  Yngvar yawned and stretched. At first he had enjoyed the attention and relaxation, but after so many weeks it became maddening. No one wanted him to worsen his leg, and Jarl Alrik himself had commanded his rest. "You're of no use to me lame," he had said. True as it was, he missed having anything to do. He had even volunteered to work the looms with the women, but was roundly discouraged from it.

  "I'll be sure you make up for your idleness as soon as you're healed," Alrik had said. Yngvar looked forward to it.

  He sighed and stared out the open door where sharp summer light spilled inside. The hall was in view, white smoke chugging off the golden thatch as the servants worked inside. Women in white head-covers walked past the open door with baskets of laundry on their hips. A dog barked. Life continued while his remained paused. Visitors during the day were rare, and he wished someone would come talk to him.