Blood of Asaheim Page 5
‘Actually, I think he does think that.’
‘Then he’s as stupid as he is stubborn.’
Váltyr sighed. ‘Tell him that, then,’ he said. ‘Gunnlaugur will brief the pack when things are settled. I came up here because I thought you’d be pleased to see some real action.’
Jorundur paused. That was a reasonable point.
He looked up at the gunship’s still-hot engines, mentally running down the list of repairs he’d intended to hand to the Iron Priest. Some of them might be possible in two days, and a few more could be carried out on board the frigate, but most would have to wait.
It was the incompleteness that irritated him, the constant harrying from one job to the next, never leaving enough time to work on something properly, always patching-up, shifting-out and making-do.
Perhaps that was his age talking. Maybe that had always been the way, and he’d just tolerated it back then. Or maybe things really were getting worse.
‘I’ll get it fixed up,’ he said, grudgingly. ‘But tell Skullhewer it won’t be in ideal shape. One big hit, and–’
‘I’ll tell him,’ said Váltyr, already walking away. ‘Just do what you can – I’ve a feeling Gunnlaugur has more pressing concerns right now.’
‘Like what?’ asked Jorundur.
‘You’ll find out,’ said Váltyr, his voice as dry as ever.
Ingvar spun tightly on the ball of his right foot, thrusting out with dausvjer, sending the blade low and hard. Then he pulled it back, withdrawing, curling his whole body up tight, generating momentum, feeling his muscles respond.
He repeated the movement, then again, each time adjusting the pace a little, angling the point a fraction more, testing his stance. The repetitions went on. Firelight danced around him, making his sweat-covered skin shine. He heard the crackle and snap of fuel in the braziers, tasted the charcoal in the air, smelled his own hot, ripe scent as his body worked.
The physical exertion helped his mind relax. It purged the residual sickness of the long void-journey, purifying him, restoring his animal vitality.
He would have preferred to have sparred with a drone, something that would have fought back, something he could have smashed apart and left in a pile of sparking debris across the floor of the training chamber.
But the Wolves didn’t use training drones, so he was alone, going through the motions on his own, rehearsing sword-thrusts with imaginary opponents in the dark.
‘Why don’t you use them?’ Callimachus had asked him.
Ingvar remembered the Ultramarine’s studiously polite expression. Callimachus had been trying hard to be diplomatic, but it had been clear enough what he had thought.
‘A drone doesn’t attack you like a minded creature,’ Ingvar had said. Back then he had been fresh out of Hjortur’s old pack, contemptuous of the skills of those he’d been thrown together with. ‘It has no soul, and a warrior needs a soul. We fight each other. We fight the enemy. That’s the way to learn.’
The rest of the squad had remained quiet. Back then, Ingvar had assumed they were cowed by his confidence, his ebullient manner, the proud heritage of Russ that he wore nakedly over his dull black battle-plate. Now he couldn’t be quite so sure.
Callimachus had shaken his head.
‘Forgive me, but it makes no sense,’ he’d said. ‘Why not send your neophytes into war with the skills they need?’
‘They learn the skills in real combat, or they die.’
‘Indeed. Which is a tragic waste.’
‘Conflict tests the warrior.’
‘Quite so – but the drone-drills prepare him. They are more flexible, perhaps, than you realise.’
Ingvar hadn’t believed him. He hadn’t believed him even after two more weeks at Halliafiore’s training facility on Djeherrod when the punishing regime had driven him into a level of exhaustion he had never known before, not even on the Long Hunt back to the Aett. He hadn’t believed him during the sparring sessions with the other members of Onyx Squad, when he’d been taken to the limit by all of them.
He’d only believed it truly when he’d finally come up against a Deathwatch-conditioned drone – a titanium-clad monster of spikes and flamers and needle-guns that had swooped around the cage like a trapped wasp, anticipating every move he made, reacting with astonishing speed, nearly taking his arm off and breaking several fused-ribs before he’d finally managed to put it out of action.
After that he’d been a bit more circumspect. Callimachus, true to form, had been painfully generous about it.
‘I entirely respect your way of war, Eversson,’ the Ultramarine had said afterwards, picking his words carefully. ‘Truly, I respect it. But is it possible that there might be some virtue in learning from precedent?’
‘You mean the Codex,’ Ingvar had said, back then barely knowing of what he spoke.
‘It does have some uses.’
Ingvar pulled out of the manoeuvre, letting dausvjer drop. He had been practising for several hours; even his body had its limits.
The exertion had done him some good. The burn in his biceps and quadriceps had a welcome familiarity about it. It felt good to be back on the home world, surrounded by the totems and sigils of the past, steeped in the harsh grandeur of the Halls of Asaheim. He was adjusting. He was remembering.
He would have preferred to have sparred with a drone.
‘My lord.’
The kaerl’s voice came from outside the locked and barred door to the training room. Ingvar pushed his shoulders back, letting his muscles unwind, before giving the order to unlock.
‘My apologies for disturbing you,’ said the man, bowing deeply as the door slid back.
‘What is it?’ asked Ingvar, reaching for a cloth and wiping the sweat from his face and neck.
‘Jarl Blackmane wishes to inform you that he has reached a decision. He thought you should know as soon as possible, since time is always short.’
Ingvar felt a sudden pang in his stomach, an unwelcome reminder of how tenuous his fate had been since returning to the Fang.
‘Fine,’ he said, barely looking at the man before him. ‘I’ll report to the Jarl.’
The man stared at the floor, as if embarrassed.
‘That will not be necessary, lord,’ he said.
Ingvar looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean?’
The kaerl hesitated, aware of the awkwardness of the tidings he’d been asked to convey.
‘I am commanded to inform you that you are to report to vaerangi Gunnlaugur. He will brief you prior to deployment to the Ras Shakeh system. Questions, supplementary orders and equipment requisitions are to go through him. The Priesthood has been informed and records amended. All has been done that was required to be done.’
The kaerl swallowed.
‘Congratulations, lord,’ he said. ‘You are once again a member of Járnhamar.’
Chapter Four
When the pack convened it was in their old staging chamber, the one they always used before leaving Fenris. The place was in the Jarlheim, tucked away behind a shaft that ran clear down into the Hould, linked to the rest of the Aett only by a single-span bridge of cold stone.
Gunnlaugur had found it, years ago. No one knew who had carved it out, nor what uses it had been put to over the thousands of years since the fortress had been delved. That wasn’t unusual. Millennia of constant war meant that the Fang was usually under-populated, and whole sections of it had collapsed, or were flooded, or were simply unexplored. Every so often, squads of kaerls would undertake expeditions into far-flung sections, hoping to open them up to habitation. Sometimes they would succeed and new chambers would be cleaned out and put to use. Sometimes they would return bearing artefacts from the forgotten past that none but the Wolf Priests knew what to make of. Sometimes they never came back. That too was not unusual; the Fang was not, an
d never had been, a safe place.
Gunnlaugur had never disclosed how he’d found the chamber. It was a long way from where he had his lodgings, and a long way from where the majority of Blackmane’s Great Company made their base. The room was old, that was clear. Stone carvings on the walls had been worn smooth by the whining wind and cracked by frost. Runes of a strange design were still visible near the arched ceiling, hacked into the granite by long-dead hands. More than fifty warriors could have been housed there comfortably, though why such a hall had been delved so far from the major transit shafts of the Jarlheim was a mystery.
A carcass lay along one wall: the skeletal remains of a sea-going drekkar. The longship’s planks had ossified generations ago, leaving a crusted, stony shell behind like the ribcage of a slain seawyrm. The metal drakk’s-head prow had survived somehow. It reared up into the roof of the chamber atop a sweep of smooth hull planks, gazing with empty eyes into the gloom.
It must have been a daunting task to have carried such a ship so high, right up into the heart of the old mountain, bracing it against the frost-sear wind and powdery dunes of snow. Perhaps the drekkar had been dismantled at sea level and reassembled inside the chamber, though Gunnlaugur preferred to believe that it hadn’t. He liked to imagine a torchlit procession of Sky Warriors hauling the ship up from the turbulent, iron-grey seas, dragging it into the high places and towing it on rollers into the heart of the Fang. There were tunnels big enough to accommodate it and hands strong enough to lift it.
That still left the question of why they had done it, and for that he had no answer. Perhaps it had been the whim of a timeworn Jarl, sentimental for his old life out on the open sea. Perhaps it had been brought there by the Priests as part of some obscure rite to placate the soul of the mountain. Perhaps it had lain there, slowly crumbling, since Russ had walked among them.
Whatever the truth of its origins, the drekkar and its strange tomb had fallen out of memory in the centuries since its entombment. Like so much else on Fenris, the place had become a relic, a half-lost fragment of a rapidly disappearing past. The Allfather alone knew how long it had been there, slowly mouldering and freezing and wasting away.
Now the ship’s tomb was Járnhamar’s place, the chamber they came to before embarking out into the sea of stars. It had come to seem appropriate, to make their final vows to one another under the shadow of the drakk’s head.
Hjortur had always enjoyed the conceit. He’d liked to leap up onto the fragile decking, crushing it beneath his boots, roaring out old sea-commands in a tribal dialect none of the others could understand. They’d laughed at that, watching him flail around amid snapping spars and planks and roaring impenetrable orders.
Gunnlaugur smiled at the memory. Hjortur had been good for a laugh. He’d led the pack with blood on his claws and a grin on his scarred face. He’d been a proper Son of Russ, that one, a bloody-minded hound, a reckless, startling monster of unrestraint.
‘Come on, then,’ said Váltyr, impatiently. ‘Let’s hear it.’
Gunnlaugur didn’t reply at once. He took a moment to study the pack before him, the remnants of one that had once been larger, the broken heart of what had fallen to his command.
He saw Váltyr looking back at him, with his pale, querulous face and penetrating gaze. He saw the pent-up energy in the blademaster’s limbs, the locked-in power that could explode without warning into a nerve-blinding whirl of steel. He saw the calculation, the coolly competent analytical mind, the strategeo’s sharpness. He saw the edge of insecurity, too, and saw the neediness.
His eyes moved to Olgeir. The big warrior stood at ease, his unruly beard spilling over his armour, his scarred cheeks creased in readiness for a toothy smile or saliva-flecked bellow. Gunnlaugur saw the wholeheartedness in that one, the generosity, the commitment. Olgeir was the rock, the foundation; he could never lead, but he could guide, and he could encourage. The Heavy-handed wanted for nothing more than he had. That was a weakness, a lack of ambition, but it made him invaluable.
Next was Jorundur, the Old Dog. He was sidelong, sideways, twisted and warped by age. Gunnlaugur saw the marrow-deep weariness in him, the pride, the cynic’s lip-curl. But he could fly. By Russ, he could fly. And for all his sourness, the Old Dog had seen plenty and done plenty. He knew where many bodies were buried, and what paths had been trodden to take them there, and where the shovels had been hidden and in what forges they had been made. When Morkai came for him at last, a thousand secrets would sink into the soil forever.
In Jorundur’s shadow was Baldr. That one was an enigma. So pleasant, so easy, so amenable. His voice was soft when he read the sagas, recounting old songs with perfect, plangent clarity. No one hated Baldr Fjolnir. He went through life like a sleek fish gliding through reeds, effortlessly, slipping into the path of least resistance. And yet, when he killed, there was something else there, something guarded, something clenched, something buried. Yes, Baldr was an enigma.
And then there was the new blood, the whelp, the stripling: Hafloí, standing apart, still strung between nervy bravado and sullen withdrawal. His red hair caught the firelight, stained vivid. He looked painfully young, as raw as a gash, lodged awkwardly out of his element. Gunnlaugur liked what he saw. Hafloí would learn. His fangs would grow, his pelt would grey, his spikiness would soften. Until then he would be good for them all. They would remember what it had been like when they had been the same way, stuffed smart with puerile bellicosity, vigour, petulance, enchantment – and with the galaxy laid supine before them, begging for glorious conquest.
‘So?’ pressed Váltyr.
Gunnlaugur looked back at the blademaster.
‘Not yet, sverdhjera,’ he said. ‘We are not all here.’
‘What?’ blurted Hafloí, speaking out of turn, not yet knowing his place in the order. ‘There’s more of you?’
Gunnlaugur looked up, over the heads of the assembled pack, back towards the low, arched entrance to the chamber. As his eyes fell on the armoured figure standing beneath it a brief tremor ran through him.
Fifty-seven years. Still, I would recognise that outline anywhere.
‘Just one more,’ Gunnlaugur said, his voice soft.
Baldr was the next to sense it. He whirled round, his eyes alive with joy.
‘Gyrfalkon!’ he cried, rushing over to greet the man under the arch.
Olgeir was next, shoving Baldr aside to envelop Ingvar in a crushing, armour-denting hug, dragging him into the chamber like a hunter hauling his prize.
Ingvar staggered out of Olgeir’s rib-cracking embrace, laughing, emerging into the firelight only for the crowd of bodies to obscure him again. Váltyr approached and gave him an awkward handclasp. Baldr clapped him on the back. Hafloí hung back.
Amid all of that Gunnlaugur caught a clear glimpse of Ingvar’s eye, just for an instant. It looked a little harder, a little greyer. Otherwise it was the same, the face he had spent mortal lifetimes in the company of.
‘Enough,’ he said eventually, stilling the noise and movement. Despite himself, a broad smile creased across his face.
Now that I see you, despite everything, it feels good to have you back.
Gunnlaugur walked up to Ingvar. For a moment, the two of them stared at one another, caught in the awkwardness of the moment. Gunnlaugur was the bigger, the broader, his armour more decorated with hunt-trophies and his pelts richer and more numerous. For all that, there was little to choose between them. There never had been.
‘Brother,’ said Gunnlaugur.
Ingvar inclined his head cautiously. ‘Vaerangi,’ he replied.
No one else spoke. Baldr stopped smiling and looked warily between the two of them. Váltyr watched carefully. The air in the chamber seemed to thicken, like the humid precursor to a fire-summer storm.
Then Gunnlaugur moved. He flung his arms wide, grabbing Ingvar and pulling him into a rough embrace.
Ingvar returned the embrace, and the ceramite of his armour grated against that of Gunnlaugur. His gesture spoke of relief, of appreciation.
‘That is good, brother,’ he said. ‘I yearned to hear it.’
Then he freed himself, stood back and regarded the pack before him. The hard lines of his face softened a little.
‘But who is this?’ he asked, smiling. ‘We take on children now?’
Gunnlaugur gestured for Hafloí to approach.
‘Careful,’ he warned. ‘The whelp has claws. Hafloí, this is the Gyrfalkon. He once served with us. Now he’s back.’
Hafloí bowed stiffly. ‘I know the name,’ he said. ‘You bear dausvjer.’
Ingvar inclined his head. ‘So I do.’
‘There is a wyrd on that blade.’
‘That’s what they say.’
‘Then it should not have left the Aett.’
Olgeir took a step fowards, ready to cuff Hafloí. Jorundur chuckled darkly as Ingvar raised his hand, halting Olgeir.
‘Perhaps,’ Ingvar said, fixing Hafloí with dead eyes. ‘But the sword goes where I go. If you have an issue with that, you may take it up with us both.’
Gunnlaugur rolled his eyes. ‘Blood of Russ,’ he said. ‘Just introduced and already spoiling for a fight.’ He shoved Hafloí away from Ingvar, sending the Blood Claw staggering. ‘You’ll fit in fine.’
Then he turned to the rest of the pack. Seven-strong, back to something like combat strength. They looked to him expectantly.
‘We are complete,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘Just as we should be. Now listen: here’s what we’re going to do.’
Ingvar tried to concentrate on what Gunnlaugur was saying. He felt his palms grow slick under the lining of his gauntlets. Hearing the old voices again, the old smells, it had hit him harder than he’d expected.