skin was raw, weeping in places from rope-burn. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Aye,’ his da said, ‘though I wouldn’t have been if Hildith had arrived a hundred heartbeats later.’
‘And the others, those trappers and miners?’
‘They’re still here. Ulf has threatened them, and there’s more swords at his back than there are behind Burg.’
‘Who?’
‘Their leader. The bald one with the scar. So they’ll abide by Ulf’s word. For now.’
‘For now,’ Drem muttered, sitting up, rising slowly. He looked about, saw men and horses milling about their courtyard, a few braces of hounds baying excitedly. Wispy Beard was giving him a dark look. Drem looked away, saw a row of bodies stretched out upon the porch, seven of them with cloaks wrapped about them.
‘There’s blood feud now,’ Olin said. ‘This will only get worse.’ He lowered his voice, handing Drem back his seax and axe. ‘It’s time for us to leave the north.’
‘Couldn’t agree more,’ Drem said, the thought of getting away from this murderous bunch a happy thought, though oddly his next thought was of Fritha kissing his cheek beneath snow-heavy boughs.
Maybe she could come with us. Don’t like the thought of leaving her here with the likes of them about.
He shot Burg and Wispy and their crew a dark look as he slipped his weapons back into their sheaths and loops at his belt. As he did so, he felt the hilt of his new sword, realized he hadn’t even thought of using it during the fight.
‘Habit.’ His da shrugged, seeing his look. ‘Besides, it was close-quarter fighting, you made a good choice.’
‘Did I?’
‘You’re still breathing, but there’s two down there that aren’t, and that’s because of you.’
Drem felt that like a punch, somewhere deep inside. Two lives, gone, because of him. He looked at the shape of their bodies beneath their cloaks, once men who laughed, loved, smiled, swore, now reduced to sacks of meat and bone.
‘Would you rather it was you down there, instead of them?’ his da said, watching his face closely.
‘No,’ Drem said, no hesitation there.
‘That’s all there is to it,’ his da said. ‘You didn’t go looking for blood, didn’t make this happen. Sometimes you can only respond, and sometimes the only answer is—’
‘Blood and steel,’ Drem finished.
‘Aye. Sig taught me that.’ Olin smiled, a hesitant twitch of his lips. ‘Ah, but it feels good to be able to talk to you of her. To talk of the past. I feel like a weight has been lifted. I should have told you sooner.’
Aye, you should.
The thud of footsteps: Hildith and Ulf thumping up the stairs to them, Ulf favouring his injured leg, Asger the market trader at his side.
‘You all right, lad?’ Hildith asked Drem.
‘Thanks to you.’ Drem nodded.
‘Might have to agree with you,’ she said, grinning. ‘Think you might owe me one, there.’
‘I do,’ Drem said.
‘We both do,’ Olin added. ‘All of you.’ He looked to Ulf and Asger.
‘You should come with us,’ Ulf said. ‘On this bear-hunt. So I can keep an eye on you. And you’re not bad when it comes to tracking, I’ve heard …’
‘What about them?’ Olin nodded at the group of trappers who had tried to hang them.
‘They’re coming too. We’ll have a line, you at one end, them at the other, me, Hildith and our lads in between. You’ll never be closer than half a league.’ Ulf tugged on his greying beard, looking around the hold. ‘Don’t like the thought of you two here, alone.’
Neither do I, thought Drem. Don’t really like the thought of wandering around in a forest with them, either. But sometimes it’s safer when you can see your enemy.
Olin frowned. ‘We’ll come,’ he said.
‘And when we get back,’ Hildith said, ‘we do need to ask you two some questions about Calder. You were seen at his forge through the dead of night, seen leaving Kergard at dawn.’
‘I paid Calder to use his forge,’ Olin said. ‘Had some ironwork to do. He was supposed to meet us at Kergard’s gates at dawn. He wasn’t there, we left.’ Olin shrugged.
‘Huh,’ Ulf grunted. ‘Doesn’t explain what he was doing out here in the arse-end of the Wild, though.’
‘Or what looks like a knife-wound in his corpse,’ Hildith added.
‘That’s jumping to conclusions,’ Ulf said. ‘Calder could have fallen on something sharp, even his own blade if he was trying to defend himself.’ Ulf shrugged. ‘There’s questions, and there’ll be plenty of time to answer them, but for now we know a bear’s out there, and we need to kill