“But . . .” There’s fucking twenty of them, you moron!
“They’re strung out, Jal. A proper leader would have kept them together, but they’re too confident, eager for the kill. The four or five at the front are nearly a quarter of a mile ahead of the last man.” He spat as if to show his disgust for their poor tactics. I would have spat too, but my mouth was too dry.
“Steady on, let’s think this one through—”
Snorri cut me off with a hiss and a raised hand. A clatter of rock on rock from the ledge below. An oath. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been slowing the Norseman down; our pursuers were only minutes behind. I lay back against the cold rock. My final resting place? I would likely die within a yard of it. At our elevation the mountain held nothing in common with the world I knew, just bare fractured stone, too exposed and too high for lichen or moss, not a twig or scrap of grass or any hint of green to rest the eye upon. As lonely a spot as I’d ever seen. Nearer to God, perhaps, but godforsaken.
In the west the sun dropped towards high and snowcapped peaks, the sky crimson all about them.
Snorri grinned across at me, eyes clear and blue once more, the wind playing raven hair around his neck, across his shoulders. He saw death as a release. I could see that now. Too much had been taken from him. He wouldn’t ever surrender, but he relished the impossibility of the odds. I grinned back—it seemed the only thing to do—that or start crawling away.
The wind brought faint sounds of men climbing now. Stones slipping beneath boots, weapons clattering, curses offered to each other and to the world in general. I tested my ankle and nearly bit my tongue off, but only nearly—so sprained rather than broken. I took the quickest of steps on it and found myself back against the rock, having blacked out for a moment. Perhaps I could hop and stumble on a bit farther, buoyed up with terror, but I’d be caught soon enough and without Snorri for protection. The moment he fell, though, I’d be off, hope or no hope.
Find a happy place, Jalan. I hopped around my boulder, trying to remember my last moments with Lisa DeVeer. Footsteps sounded along the narrow path between the drop and the boulder. The fall was the least of their worries, though they didn’t know it. Crouching and biting back on the pain, I peered around the edge of my rock to see them arrive. I would have wet myself but the mountain air is very dehydrating.
The first man to come into view was Darab Voir, just as I recalled him from the tavern, a bald-headed bruiser, scar-patterned in the traditions of some Afrique tribes, sweat glistening on his dusky skin. He never saw Snorri. The Norseman’s axe descended in an arc, paralleling the side of the rock as Darab emerged. I’ve always considered a head to be a solid object, but as Snorri’s axe passed through the mercenary’s I had to reconsider. The wedge of his blade entered Darab’s skull at the back, near the top, and emerged beneath his chin. The man’s face literally bulged, the sides of his head seemed to flow outward, and as he toppled away over the drop, without cry or protest, the rocks were drenched with him.
Snorri roared then. The ferocity in it would have given Taproot’s elephant pause, but that wasn’t where the terror lay. The horror was in the simple unabashed joy of it. He didn’t wait for anyone else to emerge. Instead he rounded the corner swinging his axe to cave in the side of the next man’s head and smash him against the rock wall. He ran then, literally ran through them, striking quick short blows as if his axe were a rapier, light as a willow switch. Two, three, four men variously pitched into empty space or slammed against the rock, all of them with a hole in them big enough to put your fist into.
Somewhere out of sight Snorri found a pause and started to declaim, not some Norse battle dirge but ancient verse from the “Lays of Rome.”
Then out spake brave Horatius,
the Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.”
Another grunt of exertion, a clatter of metal on rock. The thump of bodies falling.
“And how can man die better
than by facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods.”
Damn the barbarian. He was enjoying this madness! He thought himself Horatius on the narrow bridge before the gates of Rome, holding back the might of the Etruscan army! I started to crawl away. It’s shame that gets us killed. Shame is the anchor, the heaviest burden to carry from the battlefield. Fortunately shame was an affliction I’d never suffered from. I did wonder, though, hearing Snorri move on to the next verse of his epic, whether he might not be able to hold out there indefinitely. Providing they didn’t have bows with them . . . Of course, if that Edris were any kind of a leader he’d have sent men to flank his enemy. No single man can stand against many when they come at him from two sides. I would have flank—