Read Online Raven by Giles Kristian - Free Book Online

had appeared from the north. Their spear blades, helmets and buckles glinted in the sun as they checked their weapons, stretched their limbs and practised spear thrusts. They wore the same white robes and bundles of linen on their heads as the men we had killed the day before and they had the same metal-skinned shields too. Some of them were probably the same men who had run from us when we attacked the place, but they were back now and they wanted revenge as any man would.
    Our men were milling around the base of the building, checking their own poor weapons and nervous now in the cold light of day, their blood sluggish and their instincts telling them that they were outnumbered and in a poor position. I turned and saw Gorm carefully lining up a row of earth-filled pots along the balustrade.
    ‘Did you bring the heads?’ I asked, my stomach growling in complaint at the tough goat meat I had eaten last evening.
    Gorm’s wind- and salt-cracked lips spread into a thin smile. ‘I brought them,’ he said, understanding now why I had asked for anything heavy. ‘They’re on the steps in there,’ he said, nodding towards the door which led back inside the building. ‘I thought it was best to keep them out of the sun. Don’t know how long we’re likely to be up here.’ He frowned. ‘I could let them warm up a little,’ he suggested mischievously.
    ‘They’ll do fine as they are,’ I said. I smiled, trying to smother the fear whose icy fingers were beginning to caress my guts. ‘Hard and cold, or warm and stinking, it’s all the same. No one likes an old severed head dropped on them from a height.’ Gorm grinned and I thought him as ugly as Völund’s hairyscrotum, but yet a good man to have with you when you were in a strange land and outnumbered by men coming to kill you.
    Rolf came over and leant on the rail, his jaw set and his eyes fixed on the mounted men, who had not moved from the ridge three bow-shots away to the south-east. He spat over the side. ‘How bold do you want to play this?’ he asked without turning his head. I had not known whether Rolf would look to me to lead, or Penda, or whether he might have his own ideas. My guts tightened like a fist gripping water.
    ‘Say something, lad,’ Penda muttered and I realized I had not answered Rolf. ‘Anything will do, but give him something,’ Penda growled.
    ‘We are the anvil, Rolf,’ I said, remembering my jarl’s words, ‘and the blaumen are the lump of iron that must be placed on the anvil.’
    Rolf nodded, still staring at the riders. ‘And Sigurd?’ he asked.
    ‘Sigurd? Sigurd is the hammer,’ I said.
    ‘Even their damn banner is black,’ Penda said, jerking his chin towards the north, where the horseless warriors had planted their banner in the earth. Then a strange, plaintive sound carried to us, a keening voice rising and falling as quickly as water over pebbles, as nimble as a thin wind through a forest. As one, the dark men dropped to their knees and touched their foreheads to the ground. Then they climbed back to their feet, before dropping again as the voice melted away to silence. They repeated this action and the weird voice grew, twisting and writhing like a serpent made of smoke, and from the corner of my eye I saw Rolf touch the cheek of the short axe tucked into his belt, to ward off evil.
    ‘That is some seidr,’ he said. ‘I have never heard a man bawl like that.’ He scratched the crook of his elbow. ‘Makes my damn skin itch.’
    ‘The Christians are always singing,’ I said, ‘and it can temptyour ears to jump off your head. But this … this is different.’ I looked at Penda, questioningly.
    ‘Sounds like a couple of wolves chewing on a lamb,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘And Christ alone knows why they keep putting their faces in the dirt.’ He grinned. ‘Poor bastards must be hungry.’ But even Penda must have felt that sound worming up his spine, for he made the sign of the cross, before drawing his long