The Oathsworn Series Books 1 to 5. Robert Low

inlet lay no more than a mile away, one where we could get ashore and sort ourselves out.

      He read water like a hunter reads tracks. He could see changes in colour where, to anyone else, it was just featureless water.

      The mood had changed and everyone was suddenly alert and busy. The sail came down, a great sodden mass of wool which had to be sweatily flaked into a squelching mass and stowed on the spar.

      The oars came out, that watch of rowers took their sea-chest benches and Valgard Skafhogg, the shipwright, took a shield and beat time on it with a pine-tarred rope’s end until the rowers had the rhythm and away we went.

      Pinleg swayed past me, smiling broadly and clapping a round helmet on his head. He had a boarding axe in one hand and a wild light in his eye. It was hard for me to realise that Pinleg was older than me by ten years, since he was scrawny and no bigger than I was.

      I wondered how such a runt – his leg was permanently crippled, from birth I learned, so that he walked with a sailor’s roll even on dry land – had ended up in the Oathsworn. I learned, soon enough, and was glad I had never asked him.

      ‘I’d leave the sheep, Bear Killer,’ he chuckled. ‘Grab your weapons and get ready.’

      ‘Are we fighting?’ I asked, suddenly alarmed. It occurred to me that I had no idea where we were, or who the enemy would be. ‘Where are we?’

      Pinleg just grinned his mad grin. Nearby, Ulf-Agar, small, dark as a black dwarf and with an expression as sullen, said, ‘Who cares? Just get ready, Bear Killer. Pretend they are lots of bears. That will help.’

      I glanced at him, knowing he was taunting me and not knowing why.

      Ulf-Agar hefted his two weapons – he scorned a shield – and curled a lip. ‘Stay behind Pinleg if you are worried. Killing men is different from bears, I will grant you. Not everyone is cut out for it.’

      I knew I had been insulted; I felt my face flame. I realised, with a sick lurch, that Ulf-Agar was probably deadly with his axe and seax, but a slight is a slight …

      A hand clasped my shoulder, gentle but firm. Big-bellied Illugi Godi, with his neat beard and quiet voice, spoke softly: ‘Well said, Ulf-Agar. And not everyone can kill a white bear in a stand-up fight. Perhaps, when you do, you will share your joy with Rurik’s son?’

      Ulf-Agar offered him a twisted smile and said nothing, suddenly interested in the notching on his seax. Then: ‘I have a spear, Bear Killer,’ he remarked, with an edge-sharp smile. ‘Since you drove your own up into the head of that beast, you may want to borrow it.’

      I turned away without replying. Ulf-Agar wanted the tale to be a lie, for it was a task Baldur would have been hard put to manage, let alone a scrawny man/boy. And the nightmare of it hag-rode me to a shivering, soaked waking most nights, which I am sure Ulf-Agar had not been slow to notice.

      The nightmare was always one of those where you are running from some horror and yet you cannot get your legs working fast enough – which is what happened when I spilled out of that doorway, leaving Freydis to her wyrd. I was sobbing and panting and struggling in the snow. I fell, got up and fell again.

      My knee hit something, hard enough to make me gasp. The wood sled. The bear lumbered forward, spraying snow like a ship under full sail. I had Bjarni’s sword still, was surprised to find it locked in my hand.

      I picked up the sled awkwardly, stumbled a few steps and half fell, half hurled myself on it. It slid a few feet, then stopped. I kicked furiously and it moved. I heard the bear grunting and puffing through the snow close behind me.

      I kicked again and the sled slithered forward, picked up a little speed, then a little more. I felt the hissing wind of a swiped paw, a fine mist of blood on my ears and neck from its ruined mouth as it roared … then I was away, hurtling down the hill, the bear galloping clumsily after, bawling rage and frustration.

      There was a confusion of snow spray and darkness, a howl from behind me, then the sled tilted, bucked and I flew off, spilling over and over in the snow. I came up spitting and dazed. Something dark, a huge boulder, hurtled past me, still spraying snow and blood, rolling down the hill towards the trees. There was a splintering crash and a single grunt.

      And silence.

      Shaking woke me and I stared up at Illugi, ashamed that I had fallen asleep at all when everything else was bustle and purpose.

      ‘We are in Strathclyde,’ he said. ‘We have a task inland. Einar will explain it all later, but best get ready for now.’

      ‘Strathclyde,’ muttered Pinleg, shoving past us. ‘No easy raiding here.’

      The landing was almost a disappointment for me. With my sword in one hand and a borrowed shield in the other – Illugi Godi’s, with Odin’s raven on it – I waited in the belly of the Fjord Elk as it snaked smoothly into the bow of land.

      Shingle beach stretched to a fringe of trees and, beyond, rose to red-brackened hills, studded with trees, warped as old crones. There were rocks, too, which I took for sheep for a moment and was glad I had not called out my foolishness.

      Since nothing moved, everyone relaxed. Except for Valgard Skafhogg, who bellowed at my father as the keel ground on shingle stones, calling him a ship-wrecking son of Loki’s arse. My father bellowed right back that if Valgard was any good as a shipwright, then a few stones wouldn’t sink us and, from what he had heard, Valgard couldn’t trim his beard. Which was a good joke on his nickname, Skafhogg, which means Trimmer.

      But it was almost good-natured as we splashed ashore, to a smell of bracken and grass that almost made me weep.

      It was bitter cold and you could taste the snow. The sail was dragged out, unfurled and draped over a frame – not as a shelter, since it was sodden; we only wanted it to dry out a little. Then we’d put it back, for when we returned to this place, we’d be in a hurry to get away from it.

      Lookouts were posted and fires were lit for us to dry clothes and, above all, get warm. I staked out the sheep, as I had before, on a long line for her to crop what she could of the frozen grass and brown-edged fern and bracken.

      She had little time to enjoy it and I was almost sorry when she was up-ended, gralloched and spitted. Brought all that way in damp misery, simply to be the hero-meal before the Oathsworn went into fight: I identified strongly with that wether.

      I wondered about the fires, since the wood was wet and smoked and you could see it for miles, but Einar didn’t seem bothered. Now that we were so close, he had tallied that warmth and a full belly was worth the chance of discovery.

      My father, now free of any duties, since he had done his part, crossed to where I sat shivering by the fire and trying not to wear my drying cloak until the rest of me had lost some water.

      ‘You need some spare clothing. Maybe we’ll get some soon.’

      I glanced sourly at him. ‘A seer now, are you? If so, tell us where we are raiding.’

      He shrugged. ‘Someplace inland.’ He stroked his stubbled chin thoughtfully and added, ‘Strathclyde’s not a place to raid these days, never mind inland. Still, Brondolf is paying good silver for it, so we do.’

      ‘Brondolf?’ I asked, helping him as he started to erect a shelter from our cloaks, making a frame of withies.

      ‘Brondolf Lambisson, richest of the Birka merchants. He hires the Oathsworn of Einar the Black this year. And last, come to think of it.’

      ‘To do what?’

      My father tied cloak corners together, blowing on his fingers to warm them. The sky was sliding into dour night and it would soon be colder yet. The fires already looked flower-bright comforts in the growing dark.

      ‘He leads the other merchants of Birka. The town was a great trading centre, but it is failing. The silver is drying up and the harbour silting. Brondolf seems to think he has found an answer. He and his tame Christ godi, Martin from Hammaburg. They