The White Raven (The Oathsworn Series, Book 3) by Low Robert

Author:Low, Robert [Low, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2009-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

‘Leave off him. Good boy, well done – leave him, you hole.’

Light blinded me, white and flickering with shapes. Something whuffed and panted and rasped my face with hot wetness.

‘Get off.’

The deerhound yelped as Finn whacked it, then his great grinning face loomed over me and he chuckled.

‘He deserves a few kisses, all the same, Bear Slayer, since his nose has found you where nothing else could. Good trick, that cart business.’

ELEVEN

I was lucky, as Bjaelfi pointed out back in the shelter of the village, while he poked and prodded the back of my skull. There was a bruise between neck and shoulder the colour of Bifrost, the rainbow bridge to Valholl, while my shin was scraped raw, but no bones were broken.

I saw Kvasir look at me and shake his head with wry mirth. He knew I believed the sabre had powers to heal its owner and kept pointing out that nothing had happened to me that could not be put down to youth, strength and Odin-luck.

I looked back at him and nodded, adding: ‘Bone, blood and steel.’

He acknowledged my thanks for the rescue with a dismissive flap of one hand, then tossed me an object, which I caught awkwardly. It was Martin’s thick-ridged shoe.

‘We unearthed it from the snow, just outside the entrance you dug under the cart,’ he said. ‘Near where we found Thorkel.’

I weighed the oxhide shoe, bouncing it in my hand and realizing how lucky I had been, for such a kick with one of these could have snapped my leg like a twig. I said so and Kvasir rubbed his good eye and shrugged.

‘Its owner perhaps had a hand in that good luck – or a foot,’ he answered with a grim chuckle and nodded at the shoe when I looked at him with bewilderment.

‘Helshoon,’ he said and I blanched and carefully put the thing down, seeing now what it was. A Hel shoe, crafted for one wearing and one wearing only – on the feet of a man whose lack of mercy would take him to Hel’s hall along a last road studded with thorns and across a river sharp with iron. With such thick-soled shoes he could avoid the pain of being sliced to shreds, an unwarranted kindness from those who had howed him up.

‘Aye,’ growled Finn, coming up in time to catch this. ‘Somewhere on the road to Hel, a hard-hearted man is cursing that monk for robbing his grave.’

It would not have bothered Martin much, unearthing the dead he considered heathen to steal what he needed. Still, it marked how far Martin had sunk from the neat, fastidious Christ priest who had once argued gods with Illugi Godi in the polished hall of Birka’s fortress.

‘The boy?’ I asked and Finn grinned.

‘Piss-wet and a little cold. You saved his life.’

‘He saved mine,’ I answered. ‘The trick with the cart was his.’

Finn raised both eyebrows and looked at me, which was enough speech on the matter, for he knew what I must be feeling, owing weregild to that boy for my life.

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