You little—Gaah!” she screeched and launched herself at him, pummeling his chest, kicking, spitting, and flailing wildly.
Ulfar crossed his arms in front of his face. “Hey! Wait! We can—” Claws swung for him at eye-height, and he grabbed the hand on pure reflex. At the back of the room the door flew open.
“Leggo ma sister!” someone shouted. A man strode into the hall. “You! Gotta fine face to be showin’ round here!”
Greta continued to rain blows on Ulfar with her free hand, all the while twisting in his grip. “Stay outta this, Ivar!” she screamed. “I love him!” She was crying now, but her attack on Ulfar showed no sign of slowing down. “Why’d you leave? You told me we would be together! You told me you wanted me!”
She started kicking wildly, and her foot connected with his knee. Ulfar cried out and managed to throw her, still screaming, away from him.
Ivar sidestepped his flailing sister and came right for him. “I’ll fucking cut your shit off and stuff your face with it,” he snarled.
Ulfar was dazed but still found his feet quickly enough to ward off Ivar’s clumsy blows. “Ivar! Stop!” he shouted, but the enraged man chose not to hear him as he snarled curses and imaginative options for Ulfar’s genitals.
Backed up against a support beam, Ulfar twisted away from a vicious right hook and face-first into Greta’s redoubled efforts. She was snotty and crimson-cheeked with fury, and her words made no sense. She wrapped her arms around him in a fierce grip, shouting incoherently into his chest.
“Please, I—Mph!” The air exploded out of Ulfar’s lungs as one of Ivar’s blows finally connected, and he staggered, lost his footing, and tumbled over on top of Greta.
“Look—they’re at it again!” someone shouted drunkenly from the crowd. The laughter was mean.
Ivar roared again, completely incensed, and Ulfar felt pressure on his head, then a sharp pain as he was pulled off Greta by his hair. The woman on the floor didn’t move. Ivar shrieked, “What have you done to her, you bastard?” and twisted Ulfar’s hair even more tightly.
A knee smashed into Ulfar’s spine, hard, and the tingling sensation in the fingertips of his left hand was made worse when it disappeared and was replaced with nothing. “She’s just knocked out,” Ulfar hissed through gritted teeth. “And now”—he swung his right hand in a big arc and hit Ivar’s wrist with his clenched fist, making him scream and let go of Ulfar’s hair—“I’ve had just about enough”—Ulfar clambered to his feet and faced off against the man holding his wrist and shooting anguished glances at his sister on the floor—“of this.” He swung his left arm at Ivar; it didn’t feel right yet, still mostly numb, but it worked just fine as a club.
Ivar raised his arms on reflex to ward against the blow, and Ulfar used his own momentum to drive his right fist hard into Ivar’s stomach.
The blond man doubled over, coughing, and without missing a beat Ulfar kicked the back of Ivar’s knee. As he went down, gasping, Ulfar growled, “Stay down if you know what’s good for you.”
Fucking locals, everywhere the same. He looked around at the red, sweaty faces hoping for more violence. Part of him wanted them to come have a go—three of them maybe, a handful, enough to keep him busy.
No one came forward.
He looked at them, one by one. “I didn’t ask for this,” he said. “You saw them. It was years ago.”
A couple of grim nods in the room.
One face registered alarm. The eyes were fixed on Ulfar’s knees.
A flash of pain in his leg turned Ulfar’s vision bluish-white.
He looked down.
A skinning knife was buried almost to the hilt in his leg. Blood bubbled up out of the wound. Ivar was lying on the floor at his feet, looking up at him, a maniacal grin on his face.
Before he could think, Ulfar let himself fall down. His aim was true: his kneecaps crashed onto Ivar’s chest and he felt the ribs crack. After a moment he rolled off, drew a deep breath and screamed. All he could hear was the rattle of Ivar’s breathing and the throbbing in his own ears. No one moved to help him, so he dug his fingers into his tunic, clutching the material near the shoulder. The sleeve came off, though not easily, and Ulfar bound his leg tight just above the wound, just like he’d seen Sven and Valgard do.
Breathing quickly, he reached for the