A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

The sailor was jabbering in some ratter-tatter tongue. Erlan smelled the reek of piss. His arm was high, Wrathling poised to fall. But for a second he hesitated. There was blood everywhere. His tunic was soaked red. Men were groaning out their last breath onto the salty air.

Seeing his distraction, the sailor tried to scramble free, only for a Greek to kick him to the gunwale and pin him there with his spear-point. Erlan spun, only now seeing he was on the other boat.

Where the Hel was Leikr?

The fighting was over, more or less. Ramedios was yelling for his men to cease the slaughter. Probably he wanted any marauder still alive chained and stowed in his hold; a sailor taken in battle would be worth good silver where they were going.

Erlan limped to the steer-board side of the raiders’ ship. The wreckage of battle lay strewn about the deck. Bodies and blades. Broken shields. Abandoned ropes and grapples.

Still no sign of Leikr or Aska.

Slowly, the heat in his blood cooled. He could remember almost nothing of what had happened. The stench was vile. The Greeks were congratulating each other, slapping backs and cracking jokes, but seeing him, their faces stiffened. They backed away. He tried to smile, to show them he too was glad of their victory. But he saw only fear in their eyes.

That was when he saw Leikr.

The boy’s head was flung back, his mouth wide, his skin pale as snow. There was a huge rent in his torso, half a foot wide from collarbone to belly. He was quite dead.

‘Northman.’ Erlan turned. Ramedios was picking his way across the deck. He stopped, breathing hard, and seeing the body at Erlan’s feet, he grunted. ‘Shame.’

Erlan nodded.

One of the sailors nearby started speaking to the captain, his gaze flicking warily at Erlan. Ramedios’s expression changed. ‘He says you killed three of my men.’

Erlan wasn’t sure he had understood. ‘I don’t know how many I killed—’

‘No – three of my men.’ The Greek hit his own chest. ‘My men!’ Erlan only saw anger boiling in his face but didn’t know why. ‘He says you killed him too.’ Ramedios’s finger pointed sharply down at Leikr’s body.

‘What?’

‘This was you. Esý!’ he cried. You. . .

Realization at last dawned on Erlan. He stared down at the terrible wound he’d inflicted on his only friend. ‘No,’ he whispered in Norse. ‘You’re lying.’ And yet the horror of it made his blood run cold.

That night was still and cloudless. Erlan huddled closer to Aska, and not just for warmth. He felt need of an ally. The dog, who had cowered his way through the skirmish, was the last he possessed.

But guilt weighed on him heavier than fear. He couldn’t erase the image of those twin faces, hovering in his mind like ghouls. He felt sick at the thought of what he had done, at the proof of the darkness that dwelt within him. He was cursed, then. Cursed to wander. Cursed to always be alone. An outsider, for ever.

He wanted to unwind the thread. To go back. To make different choices. To walk a different path. But the awful inevitability of it, the outworking of what he was and who he must become seemed as inexorable as the setting of the sun. At every turn, blood haunted him, blood caked his hands, blood filled his dreams. Yet how could he ever wash it away? It was all he had to offer the world – more blood. What else had he to bring?

He felt the change around him. A coldness that had nothing to do with the chill of night. He’d heard the word ‘bárbaros’ muttered in the shadows and knew the other sailors were talking about him. So he took himself off with Aska to the bows. There, he curled up with his back to the strakes and watched, a knife salvaged from the fight hidden beside him.

Long after the rest of the crew had lain down under their cloaks to sleep, Erlan was watching still. Above him, the stars glistened like jewels, but even they seemed remote and unforgiving now, looming over him in judgement. Only Aska seemed oblivious to what he had done and snored away peacefully beside him.

His lids grew heavy. He pinched himself, murmuring snatches of old skald-songs to stay alert, but it was no good. Sleep rose about him like the tide, swallowing every thought, until at last his fingers slackened and his head lolled against the strakes. . .

When he dreamed, it was of Bravik again.

He sees the hard, lifeless features on the face of the Kingshelm, feels the burn in his limbs and the squelch of muddy gore underfoot. He tries to lift his shield but it is heavy as stone. And all about him, spears fall like rain—

He awoke with a start; the blade was already at his throat. Instinctively his fist jerked shut but found no knife-haft there, only empty air.

‘Get up,’ a voice snarled. In response, Erlan slammed his boot into something solid. A man groaned but the blade pressed deeper, fingers snatched his hair and yanked his head back. ‘Hold him, fool. Hold him!’ That was Ramedios. There was a rattle of words, too fast to understand. He discerned four, maybe five shadows.

‘Chrysos,’ he gasped – their word for gold – praying they only meant to rob him.

Ramedios laughed without mirth. ‘I have three men to replace. That costs more than some pretty necklace.’ All the same, he seized the golden torc around Erlan’s throat and jerked it free. The movement lifted the blade clear of Erlan’s jugular just for an instant. Erlan dropped to his knee and rammed his fist into the sailor’s groin. The man doubled over, his blade skittered away. Erlan leaped for it but only knocked it further and then a storm of blows fell on him, pummelling his spine and ribs and kidneys to putty. There was a bark, he heard snarls and