Free The Prow Beast by Robert Low Page A

whose brothers still charged up and down the valley. I ran a hand down the offending leg, felt the heat and the lump on the pastern; not spavined at all, just ring-bone from a kick and not too badly injured at that. He was under-nourished – as they all were after the winter, rough-coated and stiff with mud – but not bound for a platter just yet. I said so and wondered why the night and Odin had brought this horse to me at all.
    Botolf scrubbed his head in a spray of rain and frustration.
    ‘He is done,’ he argued. ‘What – are we to wait until he drops dead?’
    ‘He will not drop dead. Some decent grass and a little attention and he will be fine,’ I told him, then looked Botolf in his big, flat, sullen face. ‘If he does die, all the same, it will be in this valley, when his time has come and for more reason than to provide a meal.’
    ‘Odin’s arse,’ Finn growled. ‘I am not usually agreeing with mouse-brain – but this is a horse. Do you think he cares much how he dies?’
    Odin cared and I said so.
    Botolf growled and yanked the halter harder than he needed, jerking the colt’s head after him as he plootered through the rain to the hut. Finn shrugged, looked at me, looked at the horse, then at the sprawl of dead bodies, which was eloquence enough.
    ‘Well,’ he growled, ‘at least we can load Onund on the beast – unless your darling pony is too poorly for that?’
    I ignored the dripping sarcasm and the matching rain. Onund would not help the colt, but it would not harm him badly if it was only for a little while.
    ‘What makes you think it will be a little while?’ Finn countered, looking up from looting the corpses. ‘We cannot stay here until light – more of these may come. If we move in the dark, we will travel in half circles, even if we are careful. It could take all night.’
    We would not travel in half circles and I told him so; we would easily find our way to Thorgunna and Thordis, bairns, wagons and all, in an hour or less.
    ‘Another Odin moment, Bear Slayer?’ he asked, grunting upright and wiping bloody hands on his breeks. ‘Have the Norns come to you in the dark and shown you what they weave?’
    ‘Look north,’ I told him, having done so already; he did and groaned. The faint red eye of a fire, certain as a guiding star, glowed baleful in the rain-misted dark.
    ‘What are they thinking?’ Finn growled.
    ‘I was thinking,’ Thorgunna said, ‘that bairns needed food and everyone else needed some dry and warm. I was thinking that thralls have run off in panic and, with nowhere to go, will be looking to find us again in the dark.’
    She looked up at me, blinking. ‘I was thinking,’ she added, trying to keep her voice from breaking, ‘that menfolk we thought dead might not be and would want to find a way home.’
    I held her to me and felt her clutch hard, using her grip instead of tears. Across from me, Ingrid held Botolf and he patted her arm and rumbled like a contented cat.
    ‘I said Thorgunna was a deep thinker,’ Finn lied cheerfully, while Thordis clutched his wet tunic so tightly it bunched and squeezed water through her knuckles. ‘Was I not saying that all the way here, eh, Orm?’
    They swept us up and swamped us with greetings and warmth and pushed food at us. Onund Hnufa was gathered up and wrapped and cooed over, while I laid out the tale of the fight to the flame-dyed faces, grim as cliffs, who gathered to listen.
    ‘Nes-Bjorn,’ muttered Abjorn, who led the six men left out of the crew Jarl Brand had lent me. ‘Someone is owed a blow for that.’
    ‘Gizur and Hauk,’ added Ref, shaking his head. ‘By the Hammer, a sad day this.’
    Finn went off to look at his sleeping son and Botolf went to his daughter, leaving Hlenni Brimill and Red Njal to expound the tale; the hooms and heyas and wails rose up like foul smoke as I moved from it into the lee of a wadmal lean-to, where Thorgunna bent over Onund. Bjaelfi sat with him.
    ‘Can he speak?’