‘You’ve a wolf on your shield,’ she said.
‘Stour Nightfall’s mark,’ growled the big man, with a hint of pride, and Rikke saw he had a wolf on his shield, too, though his was scuffed almost back to the wood.
‘You’re Nightfall’s men?’ The fear was spreading all the way into her guts now. ‘What you doing down here?’
‘Putting an end to the Dogman and his arse-lickers, and bringing Uffrith back into the North where it belongs.’
Rikke’s knuckles whitened around her bow, fear turning to anger. ‘You’re fucking not!’
‘Already happening.’ The old man shrugged. ‘Only question for you is whether you’ll be raised up with the winners or put in the mud with the losers.’
‘Nightfall’s the greatest warrior since the Bloody-Nine!’ piped up the young one. ‘He’s going to take back Angland and drive the Union out o’ the North!’
‘The Union?’ And Rikke looked down at the wolf’s head badly daubed on his badly made shield. ‘A wolf ate the sun,’ she whispered.
‘She is bloody mad.’ The big one stepped forwards. ‘Now drop the—’ And he made this long wheeze, and his shirt stuck out, a glint of metal showing.
‘Oh,’ he said, dropping to his knees.
The lad turned around.
Rikke’s arrow stuck into his back, just under his shoulder blade.
Her turn to say, ‘Oh,’ not sure whether she’d meant to let go the string or not.
A flash of metal and the old man’s head jolted, the blade of Isern’s spear catching him in the throat. He dropped his own spear, grabbed for her with clumsy fingers.
‘Shush.’ Isern slapped his hand away and ripped the blade free in a black gout. He wriggled on the ground, fiddling with the great wound in his neck as if he might stop it splurting. He was trying to say something, but fast as he could spit the blood out, his mouth filled up again. Then he stopped moving.
‘You killed ’em.’ Rikke felt all hot. There were some red speckles on her hand. The big one was lying on his face, shirt soaked dark.
‘You killed this one,’ said Isern. The lad knelt there, making these squeaky little gasps as he tried to reach around his back to the arrow shaft, though what he’d do if he got his fingertips to it, Rikke had no idea. Probably he’d no idea, either. Isern was the only one thinking clearly right then. She leaned down and calmly plucked the knife from the lad’s belt. ‘Was hoping to set him a question or two, but he’ll be giving no answers with that shaft in his lung.’
As if to prove the point, he coughed some blood into his hand, and stared over it at Rikke. He looked a bit offended, like she’d said something hurtful.
‘Still, no one ever gets things all their own way.’ Rikke jumped at the crack as Isern rammed the lad’s knife into the crown of his head. His eyes rolled up and his leg kicked and his back arched. Just like hers did, maybe, when a fit came upon her.
The hairs were standing on Rikke’s arms as he slumped down limp. She never saw a man killed before. All happened so fast she didn’t know how she ought to feel about it.
‘They didn’t seem so bad,’ she said.
‘For a girl struggling to penetrate the mists of the future, you don’t half miss what’s right in front of you.’ Isern was already rooting through the old man’s pockets, point of her tongue wedged in the hole in her teeth. ‘If you wait till they seem bad, you’ve waited way too long.’
‘Could’ve given ’em a chance.’
‘To what? Put you in the mud? Or drag you off to Stour Nightfall? Chafing would’ve been the least of your worries then, that boy’s got a bastard of a reputation.’ She caught the old man’s leg and dragged him from the path into the undergrowth, tossed his spear after. ‘Or were we going to invite ’em dancing through the woods with us, and all wear flowers in our hair and win ’em over to our side with my pretty words and your pretty smile?’
Rikke spat some chagga juice and wiped her chin, watching the blood work its way through the dirt about the lad’s nailed head. ‘Doubt my smile’s up to the task and I’m damn sure your words ain’t.’
‘Then killing ’em was all o’ the one choices we had, eh? Your problem is you’re all heart.’ And she stabbed Rikke in the tit with one bony finger.
‘Ow!’ Rikke took a step away, holding her arms across her chest. ‘That hurts, you know!’
‘You’re all heart all over, so you feel every sting and buffet. You must make of your heart a stone.’ And Isern thumped her ribs with a fist, the finger bones around her neck rattling. ‘Ruthlessness is a quality much loved o’ the moon.’ As if to prove the point, she bent down and heaved the dead lad into the bushes. ‘A leader must be hard, so others don’t have to be.’
‘Leader o’ what?’ muttered Rikke, rubbing at her sore tit. And that was when she caught a whiff of smoke, just like in her dream. As if it was a tugging she couldn’t resist, she set off down the path.
‘Oy!’ called Isern around a stick of dry meat she’d rooted out of the big one’s pouch. ‘I need help dragging this big bastard!’
‘No,’ whispered Rikke, the smell of fire getting stronger and her worry getting stronger with it. ‘No, no, no.’
She burst from the trees and into cold daylight, took a couple more wobbling steps and stopped, bow dangling from her limp hand.
The morning mist was long faded and she could see all the way across the patchwork of new-planted fields to Uffrith, wedged in against the grey sea behind its grey wall. Where her father’s old hall stood with the scraggy garden out the back. Safe, boring Uffrith, where she’d been born and raised. Only it was burning, just the way she’d seen it, and a great column of dark smoke rolled up and smudged the sky, drifting out over the restless sea.
‘By the dead,’ she croaked.
Isern wandered from the trees with her spear across her shoulders and a great smile across her face. ‘You know what this means?’
‘War?’ whispered Rikke, horrified.
‘Aye, that.’ Isern waved it away like it was a trifle. ‘But more to the matter, I was right!’ And she clapped Rikke on the shoulder so hard she near knocked her down. ‘You do have the Long Eye!’
Where the Fight’s Hottest
In battle, Leo’s father used to say, a man discovers who he truly is.
The Northmen were already turning to run as his horse crashed into them with a thrilling jolt.