The Whale Road (The Oathsworn Series, Book 1) by Low Robert

Author:Low, Robert [Low, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780007370412
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2011-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

It was bitter, that journey, for the land seemed to want to scream out its beauty and the new life of spring while we grimmed our way through it, bleak with the loss of Skapti and the others, on towards an uncertain fate.

We went through belts of woodland, great oaks and ash burgeoning with fresh bud, and across swathes of fresh green, studded with small blue and pale yellow flowers. Thorn trees drooped with early blossom and every breath of wind scattered sprays of white, while the birds blasted their throats out.

And, black as a lowered brow, the Oathsworn moved swiftly, a pack of dark wolves that had no joy in any of it.

So fast did we move that we were brought to the little sheltered bay by my father and his uncanny knack just as the sky velveted to dark and the first stars frosted.

Einar halted the grey-faced, panting pack of us – the last few miles had seen more frequent halts, mainly because Hild was exhausted. But I had seen Pinleg grateful for it, while my father and Ogmund Wryneck and a few others sank down with relief, with hardly the strength to suck up their drool.

Bagnose and Steinthor went wearily out at Einar’s command, while the rest of us hunched up in a hollow, hearing the wind hiss over the tufted grass that led to the beach and out to the sea. I tasted the salt of it on my lips. Strange how we had longed for the feel and smell of land when afloat and now longed for the touch of ship and spray now that we were ashore.

No one spoke much, save for Einar, muttering with Ketil Crow and Illugi and my father. I couldn’t hear much of it, but I guessed some: my father would be there to tell Einar whether a ship could be worked out of the bay, whether wind and tide were favourable and, if not, when they would be.

Ketil Crow would have counted heads and knew how many of the Oathsworn were left – I reasoned about forty, no more, for we had left some on that forge mountain and whether dead or scattered didn’t matter. They were gone from us, like Skapti.

After a while, as a moon slid up, scudded with cloud, Bagnose came back and had words with Einar, who then called us all round him in that shadowed hollow.

‘Steinthor is watching Starkad’s drakkar. It seems all his men are ashore, with a nice fire and ale. They have posted two sentries only.’ He grinned, yellow-fanged in the dark. ‘That’s the best of it. The rest is that there are about sixty of them and they are well armed. But they are out of mail and have no thought of danger. So we form up and move, now. Move fast and hard, break them and go for the drakkar. If we can scatter them and board, we can get away, for the wind and tide are right for it.

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