Free The Book of the Sword (Darkest Age) by A. J. Lake Page B

old man the Ice people were straining to hear what was being said, but Cluaran knew there would be no reaching them now. All that he could do was leave quickly – if he was allowed.
    He realised that someone else was speaking, and for a moment was shocked to hear a voice other than Erlingr’s and his own. It was Ari, his voice slow and rough as if he were dragging it over stones. ‘It was her choice. And some of us honour and love her for it still. For her sake, Erlingr, I will go with Cluaran, if you allow it.’
    Erlingr looked down at the two of them in lowering silence. Then abruptly, he turned his back on them and stumped back to his seat, to face his pale followers. He raised his staff in a signal that brought them all to their feet, watching him in silence.
    ‘The man may go!’ he proclaimed, his voice filling the hall. ‘For the sake of the friendship that was once between us, I will not be the one to kill him. But for the sake of his past betrayal, he goes unhelped and unprovided. Let him leave now, and do not speak to him.’
    The old man turned one last time to Cluaran. ‘Go,’ he said heavily. ‘No one will hinder you. Go to
Eigg Loki
, and die there – alone, unless this fool truly means to follow you. But I will not send one more man to die with you.’
    He sank into his chair, lowering his head and closing his eyes. His people remained standing, though when Cluaran swept his gaze over the massed rows, none would look at him. He turned from them and walked away, his footsteps echoing loudly in the silence. After a moment he heard Ari follow. All the way down the tunnel that led to the outside air, the silence pursued them, and the weight of five hundred eyes at their backs.

Chapter Nine
    The black-haired girl, Ioneth, brought us food. She told us she was not of Erlingr’s people: her own race, the people of rock and ice, had been destroyed twelve years before, when Loki first sent out his fires. All were burned … all but Ioneth. Erlingr’s son Ingvald found the child wandering among the ashes, and took her in as his own.
    Later, Ioneth took me out to the snow fields and showed me mountains on the horizon, white-peaked, but streaked with black.
    – There is
Eigg Loki
, she said, where the demon is chained, though perhaps not for long. And then she whispered, so low that I wondered if I had heard her right:
    – I can help you kill him.
    ‘Please try to walk, Elspeth!’
    Edmund and Cathbar between them had hauled Elspeth upright, but her knees kept buckling under her, and she looked at Edmund without recognition.
If only we’d got heresooner!
he thought desperately. The sound that the ice made as it cracked kept ringing in his mind. He had plunged head and arms into the water, trying to catch Elspeth as she slid out of sight, but it was not until Cathbar arrived that they had been able to reach her.
    Had they been too late after all? Elspeth had not spoken since they had pulled her from the water; her eyes seeming to focus only on her right hand, where a pale glow was all that remained of the sword. Her lips were bluish and she shivered uncontrollably, despite the blankets they had draped around her.
    The fishermen were close enough now for Edmund to distinguish individual voices. He did not understand the words, but he could hear the threat in their tone – and see it in their drawn knives as they trudged nearer along the shoreline, not running but keeping close together, as if stalking a dangerous animal. Their leader, a stocky man with a red beard and blackened teeth, yelled something at them, his voice harsh with rage.
    ‘They don’t even know us! Why are they doing this?’ Edmund muttered to Cathbar. But he knew the answer even before the captain’s eyes flicked towards Elspeth’s hand. They had both seen the struggle on the ice after Elspeth cried out, and seen the flash of the sword as they started towards her.
    They had left the ice and were back on the trodden snow that covered