Free Raven: Blood Eye by Giles Kristian Page B

'Óðin will not listen to me!' I barked. On steady legs, Sigurd drew his long knife and held it up for all his men to see. I stared at the blade, knowing it was about to cut my throat, but still my limbs would not obey me. His blue eyes bored into me and then he turned, took Ealhstan's head in one great hand and held the knife beneath the old man's chin. 'Leave him!' I yelled and grabbed Sigurd's wrist and instead of knocking me back down he stared at me. 'You won't harm him!' I said, clutching the wrist as though to let go was to die.
     
Sigurd blinked slowly and gave a slight nod and I took this to mean he would not kill Ealhstan and so I let go of his arm and stepped back, somehow keeping my footing as a great wave washed over me, burning my eyes with its cargo of salt and making me retch. When he had lowered the knife I turned and picked my way to Serpent 's dragonhead prow, where I stood with one arm round the beast. Then I called to the sky.
     
'Óðin All-Father! Lord of the North! Save us from this storm! Remember me, Óðin! Remember me!' I don't know where the words came from, but I hurled them into the teeth of the storm, into the wall of whipping wind that swallowed them down. It ate my words as though I was nothing, and yet my defiance drew hot blood through my veins and stilled my trembling. 'Save us, Óðin! Save us and we will honour you!' Serpent reached the summit of a giant wall of water and then fell so steeply that she almost flipped over. I still clutched the wooden carving of the All-Father, holding it aloft, and as the ship righted herself I was flung forward over the prow, but I grabbed the top strake, and hung chest deep in the freezing water until something grabbed my shoulder and hauled me up, flinging me into the ship as though I were a codfish.
     
'Ha! Rán's daughters spat you back out, boy!' Svein the Red roared, beaming from ear to ear. 'Englishmen must taste foul! Those bitches will usually take anyone they can get their claws into!' I crouched in the hollow of the ship's bow, terrified and appalled, because I believed the Lord Christ had tried to drown me for invoking a heathen god. I shivered. Then I vomited, spewing up warm seawater on to Serpent 's seasoned timber hull.
     
On hands and knees I crawled to the mast, to Ealhstan, afraid that if I stood Christ or Njörd or any other god might see me and fling me back into the cold sea. And there I sat as the old carpenter scoured me with eyes as cold as opals. Water dripped from his top lip and he spat it away in disgust.
     
'I had to do it,' I said. 'What choice did I have?' But Ealhstan shook his head and closed his eyes and though it could have been to rid them of stinging salt water, I believed it was so he did not have to see me; me who had prayed to a heathen god and suspended my soul above Hell's fire.
     
Then Olaf pulled a dry fur from the hold and gave it to me. 'Here, boy, you did well,' he said, frowning as though wondering what I was. Behind him I saw Sigurd. He had two hands on Serpent 's top strake, his face turned up to the night sky. And he was smiling.
     
The storm broke. The low black cloud which had been the belly of the beast split apart to reveal a forest of stars. The seas fell and the stinging rain died, and for a time I feared the elements were simply regrouping to return and finish us off. After all the noise it was eerily quiet aboard Serpent . The men's low voices and the rhythmic creak of seasoned oak replaced the fury of wind, rain and sea. I tied back my hair with a length of tarred twine and sat at my place on Serpent 's port side, gripping her top strake with white hands and looking out across the grey sea.
     
'Don't worry, little brother. He's had his fun with us,' Sigtrygg said, slapping my back as he bent to scoop up water with a thin-lipped pail. Pools sat in the hollows of the sail that covered the hold, and our feet sloshed through water so that half Sigurd's men were busy bailing. 'Old Njörd