a bastard, too. However, surprise sometimes helped.
Sometimes.
With all his might, he threw the pine cones arching over Karle’s position.
The prince’s head whipped round, and a moment later, his body stiffened. In a flash he was up out of his crouch and heading toward Uppsala at a dead run, caring nothing for who might see him.
Ulfar was left standing halfway up a tree, his mouth agape.
His eyes narrowed. He clambered down. Goran was waiting for him at the foot of the tree.
“How’d you do that?” he said, with more than a touch of admiration. “What did you—?”
Ulfar didn’t reply. Instead he walked straight over to where Prince Karle had been waiting to pick them off. Then he inched outward in expanding half circles, staring at the ground until he found what he’d been looking for, about forty yards away.
He knelt down, traced a pattern with his fingers and picked up his pine cones. Then he went back to their little clearing. He looked at Heidrek’s body, lying there in a puddle of his own blood. Then he turned to Goran.
“It wasn’t your idea, was it?” he said.
Goran looked at him. The guard’s stance shifted slightly, unconsciously anticipating the fight. “What do you mean?”
“Coming for me. It wasn’t your idea, was it?”
“I can’t remember,” Goran said. A cloud of confusion crept over his face. “No—wait. I sat with Ingimar. But there—”
“There was something strange about him. He was older. Thinner,” Ulfar snapped, scouting the perimeter.
“How do you—?”
“And let me guess,” Ulfar added. “He had real trouble seeing out of one eye.” Goran and Arnar stared at Ulfar.
“What did you find out there?” Inga asked.
Ulfar looked at her, his face dark with anger. “Wolf tracks.”
Suddenly there was no lack of shadows in the forest. Every noise sounded louder and more significant.
Arnar broke the silence. “Hrmph,” he snarled, grasping the reins of the four remaining horses. He reached out and pulled Inga up, helping her to mount her horse again. She moved slowly, as if she’d just woken up. Arnar looked at Heidrek’s body and then at his own horse, lying on the ground and twitching in pain.
“Go,” Goran said.
As he walked off, Goran drew his belt-knife and sighed.
A while later, Goran and Ulfar were walking again, following Arnar and Inga, heavy sacks by their sides. They walked in a relaxed silence.
“. . . like that. Soft, see,” a deep voice rumbled. “Look. Look how her head droops. She likes that.”
Goran’s eyebrow rose.
Ahead, blurs of color became shapes.
Arnar stood by Inga, guiding her hand as she brushed her horse down. A tilt of the head showed the bearded man had noticed their approach, but his eye remained trained on the young woman. “Good, good,” he said. “You’re doing well. Last one,” and with that he moved her hand gently away from the horse’s flank. “See? She’s happy now.”
The mare shook her head and nudged Inga affectionately.
Even from a distance, Ulfar and Goran could see something in the young woman’s shoulders soften as the smile lit up her face.
Beside him, Goran took one step to the right and broke a twig with his foot. “Arnar!” he called, clearing his throat. “We’re back.”
“About time, too,” the bearded man rumbled. “Need to get going.”
Later, as the sounds of Karle’s flying arrows faded into memory, Ulfar sidled up to Arnar. “You saved our lives,” he said.
The bearded man nodded. “Bad business.”
“Bad business,” Ulfar agreed.
There was nothing more to add, so he spurred his horse to catch up with Goran.
They rode together up front in companionable silence.
After a while, Ulfar spoke. “Tell me about him,” he said.
Ulfar raised an eyebrow. “Nothing gets past you, does it?”
Goran frowned. “I can’t really remember,” he said. “Everything he said made such sense at the time. Find someone, he said, someone who’s a bit of a, you know—”
“A bit of a cock.”
The old guard nodded, smiling. “Well, yeah. So, someone like you, and then see if they would pay us to follow them.”
Ulfar struggled to keep a smile on his face. “Let me guess. He bought you drinks?”
Goran still looked vaguely confused. “I suppose he must have. My purse is no lighter.”
“And you passed out and missed the caravan,” Ulfar said. “Funny, that.”
Goran’s shoulders slumped and he cursed silently. “Who . . . ? Was he—?”
“I don’t know, but I think he may have been following me for a while. I also think he’s watching us, but I don’t know why.”