Blood of Asaheim

Chapter Thirteen



The great sun sank towards the western horizon like a smouldering ingot of gold, turning the sky bronze and setting the world’s edge alive with fire. Shadows streaked across the rust-red of the plains, rippling over runnels of sand and merging in their broken lees. The air lost its heaviness; it remained hot, but the searing, beating oppressiveness of it lightened just a little.

In happier times, dusk was magical on Ras Shakeh, a time to light candles under the lintels of the doorways and file towards one of the city’s one hundred and twenty-nine chapels to perform rites of devotion. Scents of cinnamon and gahl-oil would rise from braziers and thuribles, intermingling with the murmur and hum of voices lost in prayer and wonder.

Now, though, the coming of night was far from magical. Hjec Aleja burned with unholy fires now, punctured across its expanse by the immolation of plague-addled saboteurs. Pyres constructed before the chapel doors now smoked from the charred bodies of the damned. The roast-pork stench of smouldering human flesh hung like a cloud over the narrow roofs and winding streets.

Burning the infected was the only way to limit the damage. Keeping the flesh intact created foul cradles for the blowflies and maggots that spread the sickness. The Sisters worked methodically through the city’s many districts, dragging those with signs of infection from their habs and administering the Emperor’s Mercy. Civilians looked on sullenly, only partially aware of the dangers posed by the plague-carriers in their midst, resentful of the savage measures taken to keep the healthy intact. Rumours filtered up to the Halicon of riots in the poorer quarters, of families sheltering mutants in cellars and under floors, and fighting to keep them hidden from the burn-teams.

They were only rumours, but this was just the beginning. All knew it would get worse.

Olgeir stood on the ramparts of the Ighala Gate, just under the shadow of one of its many defence towers, and gazed out over the cityscape below. Unlike his brothers he had taken no part in the hunt. His energies had been devoted to the city’s defensive preparations: shoring up wall sections, excavating fire trenches, demolishing paths through the tangle of buildings to allow the passage of arms. He’d worked tirelessly throughout the day, hauling and lifting alongside the mechanised transports, roaring at the mortal labourers and exhorting them to greater feats of sacrifice. Many of the men were already exhausted, thrown into construction work straight from active tours on the battle-fronts to the south and west.

Olgeir felt pity for them. He recognised their sacrifice, he could see the pain in their faces, he knew what some of them had already faced.

He gave them no quarter. Time was short, and the storm front was closing. With the Sisters preoccupied with containing the infection, much of the task of improving the defences had fallen to him. He’d embraced it, throwing himself into the heavy, draining labour as if he alone could somehow refashion the entire city in the few days that remained. He’d trudged up and down the lines of sweating labourers between the inner walls and the outer gate, marshalling them, bellowing for more supplies, physically clearing blockages and barriers when mortal endurance failed.

But even his strength was not infinite. As the last of the sun’s rays sank below the horizon, he leaned on the stone walls of the soaring inner wall and felt the sweat rising from his body like steam from a horse’s flanks. Every muscle in his huge body throbbed painfully, chafing at the input nodes where his power armour interfaced.

He let his shaggy head fall back and pulled in a long, long draught of night-warm air, feeling the smoky taste of it against the back of his throat. Above him, the stars gazed down, points of brilliant silver in a field of darkening nightshade.

‘Hjá, great one,’ came a familiar voice from further down the parapet, towards the Ighala gatehouse where more lascannons were being slowly winched into place.

Olgeir smiled as he turned to face Baldr. ‘Good hunting?’ he asked.

Baldr grinned. His face was speckled with gore and his long hair hung unplaited around his neck. His helm had been locked to his belt and his blade was sheathed.

‘They’re everywhere,’ he said, drawing alongside Olgeir and looking out over the city below. ‘Kill one, another runs from cover. It’s thirsty work.’

Olgeir looked at Baldr carefully. He looked better than he had done when they’d made planetfall. His eyes had their old intensity back, like soft orbs of gold. Perhaps his cheeks looked a little more sunken than they should have, but his voice had recovered its calm, easy assurance.

‘It suits you, brother,’ he said. ‘I’d begun to worry.’

Baldr sheathed his blade and leaned heavily against the stone railing.

‘No need,’ he said. ‘But nice to know I have a nursemaid.’

Olgeir let a rumble of laughter escape his chapped lips. It felt good to let his lungs expand after so much heavy lifting. He stretched his arms out, feeling the muscles pull, loosening the stiff layers of hard flesh.

‘Don’t relax too much,’ he warned. ‘We’ll be heading out again soon.’

Baldr nodded, looking eager enough. ‘Aye,’ he said, softly. ‘Can’t wait.’

He meant it. His face had a hungry look to it, one that hung around his grey features like a scent. He stared out across the twinkling cityscape as the dusk-lights were lit, beyond the outer walls and across the wine-dark plains beyond.

‘You’ve been working hard,’ Baldr said, scanning the earthworks that scarred the route down the outer gate.

Olgeir snorted. ‘We could have weeks and it wouldn’t be enough.’

‘Still. You’ve done plenty.

Olgeir shrugged. ‘The main gates are rigged with incendiaries,’ he said. ‘Once they break in, we’ll burn their entire vanguard. After that they’ve got three layers of trenches to get across. We’ll pump promethium into them once this thing starts – it’ll take them a while to wade through all that. And this place has twice the armaments on it now. I diverted a whole stash they’d been planning to mount on the Halicon walls. No point keeping them there. If they get that far we’ll all be dead and rotting.’

Baldr nodded thoughtfully.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good. Much more to do?’

‘Depends how long we’ve got,’ said Olgeir. ‘When the Sisters aren’t burning plague-carriers they’re training the civilians to shoot straight, which is worth doing, but they won’t do much more than slow the advance.’

‘I don’t know. I’ve seen mortals learn to fight. These ones are scared enough. They know there’s nowhere else to go.’

‘True enough,’ said Olgeir grimly.

Baldr’s fingers drummed against the parapet railing. He pushed himself away from them, grasped the hilt of his sword, then released it again. His movements looked nervy, impatient.

‘Where are the others?’ he muttered, almost to himself. ‘We should be going.’

Olgeir watched him warily. Perhaps his earlier assessment had been too optimistic. It was strange to see Baldr so transformed, so removed from his usual self.

‘They’ll be here soon,’ he said cautiously. ‘Brother, I mean no disrespect, but are you sure you’re feeling…’

He didn’t finish the sentence. He’d got so used to Baldr’s calmness, his lack of fuss or drama, that finding the words to express concern was difficult.

Baldr looked back at him for a moment. It looked like he was going to say something, to unload some long-clutched anxiety.

‘Heavy-hand!’

Ingvar’s clear voice rang out across the parapet. Baldr spun round, the moment gone, his expression clearing.

‘Gyrfalkon,’ he said, clasping Ingvar’s hand as he came to join them.

Olgeir greeted him in turn. Ingvar looked pleased to see both of them.

‘Others not here yet?’ he asked. Like Baldr, his face and armour were speckled with dried gore. He hadn’t wiped it free of his matted hair or skin; the Wolves wore the blood of their enemies as marks of pride.

‘You were always faster,’ said Baldr. ‘Many kills?’

Ingvar nodded. ‘Crawling all over the Cathedral district.’ He patted dausvjer’s scabbard. ‘Not any more.’

Olgeir shook his head with disgust.

‘That blade shouldn’t sully itself with filth,’ he said. ‘The Sisters should have nailed this down themselves – they’ve had weeks.’

‘They’ve done plenty,’ said Ingvar. ‘This is a shrineworld, the garrison here is tiny. Don’t judge them too harshly.’

Olgeir chuckled. ‘So she’s got to you,’ he said. ‘You’ve gone native.’

Ingvar smiled. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘But they can fight. You’ll see it.’

‘We’ll all see it,’ said Baldr.

The noise of more boots crunched along the parapet. Three more warriors emerged from the shadows of the Ighala Gate tower. Gunnlaugur and Váltyr marched together; Hafloí trailed behind. The Blood Claw bore almost no trace of the wound he’d taken on the plague-ship. Váltyr’s expression was hard to read. He seemed tense, as if already preparing for the combat to come. Gunnlaugur’s burly face was expectant and heavy with kill-urge. He looked ready to burst out of the walls, ready to plunge into the oncoming horde and smash it apart single-handed.

‘Now listen,’ he said, looking across the assembled pack. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do.’

Vuokho’s innards spilled across the blast plate, patchily lit by scaffold-mounted flood-lumens arranged around the perimeter. Whole engine sections lay on the rockcrete, stripped down and exposed to the night air. Oils and lubricants stained the ground in splatters. The landing stage hummed with the low buzz of machine tools, the whine of drills, the thud of rivet-guns. Welders threw dazzling arcs of blue fire across the scene. Between it all, dull-eyed labourers shuffled into place to lift, clamp, cut and fit.

They were all servitors, and they crawled over the gunship’s carcass like scavengers picking at the bones of a fallen giant. Some looked almost species-normal, with only puckered grey skin and augmetic limb-units giving them away; others were more machine than human, with mere fragments of muscle and sinew stretched between jointed tracks and thickets of cabling. They slaved silently, ignoring the sparks from the welders as they burned against unprotected skin, never slowing, never hurrying.

Jorundur clambered out of an inspection pit under the gunship’s huge underbelly and wiped his forehead. His skin was covered in streaks of inky engine oil, his beard singed from the hot metal of the thruster housings. He’d removed his armour and wore a filthy brown tunic that exposed the burnished sweat of his arms.

He seized a rag from one of the more human-looking servitors and ran it over his neck. His hair and beard hung lank about his gaunt face.

‘Progress?’ he asked.

The servitor looked back at him vacantly.

‘Task at phase alpha, lord. Estimated completion: five local days. Parts missing. List follows: two fuel-line regulator valves, three boost-plug sleeves, one–’

‘Spare me,’ sighed Jorundur, throwing the rag back at the demi-human workman. It slapped the creature full in the face and slid down to the floor. The servitor didn’t flinch.

‘Blood of Russ,’ swore Jorundur, limping around the apron to get a better look at Vuokho’s flanks. He felt stiff and awkward, a result of hours spent hunched over piles of crackling component-bundles. ‘Hopeless.’

He stomped around to the cockpit. Its angular nose hung above him, still covered in re-entry burn and cracked from projectile impacts. One of the panes of armourglass was a shattered mess. That had been fun when it had happened, still barely into Ras Shakeh’s troposphere and with the gunship falling fast.

He stood back, hands on hips. Vuokho was far from flight-ready. It was even further from combat-ready. Deep in his heart, he knew it would play no role in the battle to come. Even if he could somehow restore limited drive-function, the weapons would overload the second they were fired.

His time would have been better spent with the pack, hunting the plague-damned before their foulness spread further.

For all that, though, he couldn’t let it go. It was all he had, his peerless mastery of airborne combat. Take that away, and it was hard to mask the truth: he was old. He’d missed his chance for the Wolf Guard, he’d missed his chance for the Long Fangs. All that remained for him was death in Járnhamar, no longer fast enough to evade it, no longer strong enough to see it off.

He could feel Morkai panting down his neck. At night, in the scant moments of sleep he allowed himself, Jorundur could feel the dark wolf’s foul breath running down his spine. Only when he was in the air, wheeling and banking through the hammering fire-lanes and letting rip with the battle cannon, did the sensation leave him.

He hawked up a bitter gobbet of oil-tainted phlegm and spat messily.

‘You and me,’ he snarled, looking up at his beloved Vuokho. ‘Ice and iron, I’ll get you in the air again.’

He heard a faint cough, and whirled round.

A Battle Sister stood before him. She was dressed in full ebony armour, though her head was bare. Like all her sisters she wore her hair clipped short. Hers was silver-blonde, shorn close to pale skin. Frost-blue eyes looked at him uncertainly.

‘What do you want?’ Jorundur growled, irritated at the interruption. Being surrounded by mind-dead servitors was one thing; having living mortals sniffing around was another.

The Sister bowed.

‘Callia, at your service, lord,’ she said. She proffered a regulation food-tin, vacuum-packed with protein extracts. ‘The canoness sent me. She thought you might have need of sustenance.’

Jorundur looked at the tin doubtfully. He could smell its bland contents through the metal. He briefly remembered the supplies that had been destroyed with the Undrider – raw meats of Fenris, blood-heavy and slick with fat; whole vats of mjod, frothing in the cold and as thick as bile.

He started to salivate, and swallowed it down.

‘My thanks,’ he muttered, snatching the tin from her. It looked meagre in his oversized hand, barely enough to sate a moment’s hunger.

But she was right, and it had been good of her to come. He’d lost track of time and had little idea how long he’d been working.

Sister Callia looked up at the half-dismantled Thunderhawk. Her cool eyes soaked up the damage.

‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ said Jorundur, a little quickly, unable to stomach criticism of it even when it was half ruined and broken open.

‘A mighty machine,’ murmured Callia. Her quiet voice held no trace of sarcasm. ‘Even before the war destroyed our few flyers, we had nothing so grand.’

She started to walk around it, heading under the cockpit’s overhang.

Jorundur put the tin down and followed her. He couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or flattered by her interest.

‘Four centuries,’ he said, staying close. ‘That’s how long it’s been in service.’

Callia turned to face him. ‘And will it last a little longer?’ she asked. Her face held a certain sadness, as if she’d long resigned herself to the destruction of all she cared about and now only concerned herself with making a decent fist of the last stand.

Jorundur rubbed his chin. ‘Perhaps,’ he grunted. ‘Get me some better servitors, I might get it flying again.’

Callia gave a rueful smile. ‘You have our best already. But I’ll talk to the canoness.’

‘Do that.’

Jorundur turned away from the gunship and looked at Callia. Her armour, though beautifully cared for and polished, bore the marks of recent use. Her greaves and cuirass were chipped down to bare metal. Like her sisters, she had been in action for a long time.

Callia noticed his gaze and seemed to guess what he was thinking. ‘Burn-team duty,’ she said bluntly. ‘Next rotation in two hours.’

Jorundur nodded. He’d smelt the pyres.

‘Did you get many of them?’

She nodded sadly.

‘Too many.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Your brothers kill faster than we do. I saw them in action. They laughed when they returned, covered in blood they didn’t bother to wipe from their armour.’

She looked down.

‘I cannot laugh. These are my people. A month ago we were ministering to them. We told them a new dawn was coming, the start of a crusade. Even when the plague takes them I mourn that so many must die. I wonder at the way you Wolves delight in slaughter.’

Jorundur shrugged. ‘Don’t expect us to be like you,’ he said. ‘We were made this way. That’s why you wanted us here, was it not?’

Callia looked back up at him, unabashed. ‘The canoness wanted you here. Others of us – I will not mention names – were opposed. You have a reputation.’

Jorundur chuckled. ‘A cultivated one,’ he replied. ‘You speak plainly, Sister. I like that. I’ll return the compliment. Until I got here I thought you were all stuck-up bitches, wearing a pale mockery of our sacred armour and pretending to fight like we do. I thought you were pious and arrogant.’

Callia suppressed a smile. ‘Stuck-up bitches,’ she said, amused. ‘That’s… candid.’

Jorundur shrugged. ‘I try to be. And don’t be surprised – our memories are long. Fenris has been attacked by your kind more than once.’

‘Not in living memory.’

Jorundur snorted. ‘In our living memory. You may have forgotten, but we have not. We tell sagas of it. We sing of how we sent your priests home, their robes stripped from their backs and their warships breaking open around them.’

Callia sighed. ‘I’m sure you do,’ she said. ‘But then you are a warlike people. Fenris has been attacked by the Inquisition too. You make enemies easily, it seems.’

‘We make no enemies but Traitors and xenos. If others choose to get in our way, that’s their business.’

Callia nodded, as if confirming something to herself. ‘Perhaps that is what I meant.’

Jorundur paused then, suddenly concerned he’d caused too much offence. He wouldn’t normally have been worried, but Gunnlaugur had given them all strict orders to keep the peace.

‘But I speak loosely,’ he said, smiling awkwardly and exposing his curved yellow fangs. ‘You understand that? Forgive me. We are just savages – savages from an ice-world that breeds us cold and rude.’

Callia looked amused again.

‘I’m not some prim schola maid,’ she said. ‘But thank you: I had not expected such concern for my sensibilities. Especially as we are all such – what were the words you used? – stuck-up bitches.’

Jorundur laughed out loud, hacking up phlegm from his dry throat and coughing on it. He clapped Callia hard on the shoulder, and the slap of unguarded flesh against power armour made his palm sting.

‘I like you!’ he exclaimed. ‘Blood of Russ, has the galaxy no end of wonder?’

Callia looked less sure.

‘Maybe not,’ she said, moving away from him smoothly. ‘But I do have duties waiting. I’ll talk to the canoness about the servitors.’

Jorundur bowed, still smiling. ‘It can wait,’ he said. ‘My work is drawing to a close for today.’

Callia raised an eyebrow.

‘You need rest?’

‘No, no. My brothers have had the hunting in this city all to themselves. They will be heading out into the dark soon, and it is time I took up the burden on their behalf.’

Callia looked at him distastefully.

‘You will relish killing our people as much as they.’

Jorundur gave her a crooked, semi-ashamed grin.

‘Maybe more so,’ he confessed.

Ingvar watched Gunnlaugur intently. The Wolf Guard spoke to them all but wouldn’t meet his gaze. He’d look at all the others, but not him.

He’s putting something off. Something he doesn’t want to tell me.

Ingvar felt his hearts sink. He’d hoped the exchange in the Halicon, as difficult as it had been, had cleared the air between them. A state of continued tension suited nobody.

But then Gunnlaugur had always been proud. He was a born warrior, only happy with bolter in hand and prey in sight, never knowing how to handle anything but combat. It wasn’t so much that the Wolf Guard didn’t tolerate differing points of view, more that he didn’t understand how they could exist. The way of Russ, the brutal life of the hard ice, the exalted state of the Sky Warrior, that was all there was for him. Just as the Sisters fervently believed in the perfect godhood of the Emperor, so Gunnlaugur believed in the perfect heritage of the primarch, frozen into the annals of Fenris and sanctified by millennia of war.

Ingvar couldn’t blame him for that. He’d thought the same once. It had taken a lot to shake that faith.

Tyranid-breed xenos, millions upon millions, turning the void into a living hell, burning with hive-malice, dousing the light of Terra. The ships! They are like worlds, vast and swollen, disgorging living contents in columns of twisting, slavering frenzy.

We cannot fight them. They will come at us, again and again. There is no end to it. Callimachus, there is no end to it!

Ingvar forced himself not to remember. He forced himself not to see the Ultramarine’s face turning towards him, stoic to the last, ready to enact the order he’d been given by Halliafiore. He forced himself not to see the agony in that face, hidden by Callimachus’s peerless conditioning, his reserve, his unimpeachable honour.

The things they made us do.

He curled his fingers together, concentrating on the present.

‘The canoness has restored partial mid-range auspex scans,’ Gunnlaugur was saying. ‘We have readings coming at us from all directions. The city is at the centre of a closing circle. Numbers are hard to estimate.’

‘Take a guess?’ said Olgeir.

‘Thousands,’ said Gunnlaugur sourly. ‘Many, many thousands. The plague has spread. De Chatelaine thinks most of their troops are defenders who’ve succumbed and then mutated. That’s why this thing’s happened so fast. Every city they’ve taken has swollen their ranks. They conquer, they get stronger.’

‘She was right: they do not wish to destroy this world,’ said Baldr. ‘They wish to possess it. For what?’

Gunnlaugur looked at him irritably.

‘We don’t need to know.’ Still he avoided Ingvar’s eye. ‘Survival is the first task, vengeance the next. The armies have fractured as they near the city. Discipline is weak on the fringes, and one armoured column has come too far up the defiles to the south. That’s the one we’ll take.’

Olgeir grunted. ‘What are we talking about? Mortals? Plague-bearers?’

‘Both. Perhaps more.’ A glint of anticipation lit up Gunnlaugur’s features, sparking in his amber eyes. ‘De Chatelaine picked up strange readings, ones they couldn’t decipher. Something… interesting travels in that column.’

Ingvar felt mounting unease. A raid was one thing – taking out enemy troops before they could take up position made sense. Going after unverified targets was another.

He said nothing. It would only antagonise Gunnlaugur. The Wolf Guard had taken a blow to his prestige by losing the Undrider; a feat of arms against a worthy foe would redress the balance.

‘How far?’ asked Hafloí, flexing his fingers absently. His voice gave away his eagerness – he was chafing at the leash already.

Gunnlaugur gave him an approving look.

‘If we leave now and move fast, we can engage before dawn.’

‘No speeders?’ asked Olgeir.

‘Nothing that could carry us. We’ll run.’ Gunnlaugur grinned. ‘Think of it brother: close pursuit, under the stars, nothing but the scent of fear between you and the enemy.’

Olgeir nodded slowly, a smile creeping across his scarred, ugly face.

‘Pure,’ he murmured.

‘We kill them all,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘Destroy everything. Hit hard, then withdraw. Allfather willing, that’ll give the bastards pause. They already know something destroyed their ship – we can work on that doubt. It might even slow them, give us more time to cleanse the city.’

‘They won’t slow,’ said Ingvar. The words came out of his mouth unbidden; he hadn’t meant to speak. Immediately his eyes flickered up towards Gunnlaugur, but the Wolf Guard still avoided contact. Váltyr, standing to Gunnlaugur’s right, looked uncomfortable.

‘It’ll hurt them,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘And what’s the alternative? Hole up here until they’re clawing at the walls? Not the way of the Fenryka.’

Olgeir and Hafloí both growled in agreement. Ingvar could almost smell their hunt-readiness.

Gunnlaugur pulled himself to his full height. The runes on his armour flickered in the soft lights of the city, playing over the ceramite like tongues of flame. Despite the blood and slime that still caked his battle-plate, he looked savagely magnificent, the very embodiment of a vaerangi.

‘We were brought here for a reason, brothers,’ he said. ‘Time to show them what it was.’

‘And Jorundur?’ asked Ingvar.

Only then did Gunnlaugur look directly at him.

‘He’s staying here,’ he said. ‘As are you, Gyrfalkon.’

For a moment, Ingvar didn’t believe it. He felt sure he’d misheard.

‘You mean–’ he started.

‘I mean you’re staying here.’

Gunnlaugur’s voice was cold. His amber eyes didn’t waver.

Ingvar felt sweat break out across his palms. For the space of a heartbeat he couldn’t say anything, sure that if he tried he’d unleash something he’d regret.

‘Why?’ he asked thickly, keeping himself under control with difficulty.

‘The plague worsens. The Sisters need help.’

That was ridiculous. The Sisters had been trained for such work; they were very, very good at it.

Ingvar looked over at Váltyr. The blademaster averted his eyes.

‘Is this your doing?’ he spat. The anger in his voice rose to the surface.

Váltyr stirred then, looking like he wanted to rise to the challenge. He was cut off by Gunnlaugur.

‘Enough,’ he said, letting threat-notes bleed into his speech. ‘The city is burning. I will not abandon it.’

Ingvar crushed his fists into tight balls.

It was a humiliation. Punishment for what happened on the plague-ship.

I need to know that you will follow an order.

Or a test.

Ingvar stared directly at Gunnlaugur. For a moment their eyes met, one pair golden, the other as grey as winter sleet. When he spoke next, his voice was sharp with bitterness.

‘You want me to waste my blade here on filth that can barely stand? So be it.’ Ingvar raised his chin, looking proudly back at the Wolf Guard. Jocelyn himself could not have expressed such disdain. ‘I will scour the citadel. When you return, expect to find it cleansed and ready for your arrival.’

He swept his gaze across the rest of the pack. Olgeir was dumb with surprise; Baldr almost distraught. Hafloí returned his gaze coolly. Váltyr looked torn between shame and defiance.

Then he turned, not waiting for Gunnlaugur to dismiss him, and strode away from the pack, back towards the defence tower. He could feel his cheeks burning from the fury that coursed through him, bubbling under the surface like magma under a thin crust of rock.

After he’d ducked under the doorway and started to descend the stairway down to the next level he heard footsteps clattering on the stone behind him. For a moment he thought, or hoped, they were Gunnlaugur’s. When Baldr grabbed him by the shoulder it was a disappointment.

‘You have been wronged,’ said Baldr.

Ingvar twisted round to look at him. Baldr’s face was white with shame. His eyes looked sunk deep into his flesh and an unhealthy pallor hung in their shadow.

Ingvar wondered how he’d not noticed that earlier.

‘It is nothing,’ he said.

‘Olgeir is arguing with him. Come back. Fight with us.’

Ingvar smiled, despite himself. He could hear Heavy-hand’s booming voice from the parapet above, remonstrating futilely.

‘You are my true brother,’ he said. The worst of his anger subsided, giving way to a low, sullen feeling of misuse. ‘But do not do this. He is vaerangi. It is his judgement, and his anger is with me, not with you.’

Baldr looked pained. ‘It is unjust.’

‘It is not.’ Once the first flush of humiliation had passed, Ingvar began to see what Gunnlaugur was doing. It was not the way that Callimachus would have run his squad, but it had a certain, brutal logic. ‘Follow Gunnlaugur, just as you have done. You do not help me by defying him.’

Baldr hesitated. He looked lost.

‘I do not understand,’ he said. ‘You were like blood-kin.’

‘We were. We may yet be again.’ Ingvar reached down to the soul-ward at his breast, the sálskjoldur, and lifted it up. ‘But this is the mark of brotherhood. I cherish it. Do not fear for me.’

Baldr’s eyes followed the pendant as it twisted in Ingvar’s grasp. He looked suddenly wistful, as if part of him regretted losing it.

‘This is one raid,’ he said. ‘One raid. After that the true battle begins, and we will come together then: you, me, Gunnlaugur, like it used to be.’

Ingvar nodded. ‘I yearn for it,’ he said, with feeling. ‘For now, though, let him have his way. Blood the enemy, just as he wishes. He needs a victory, one that will banish the shades of the Undrider. Deliver that for him and he will forget his pride.’

Baldr reached up for the soul-ward and pressed it back against Ingvar’s breastplate. His grimace was wry. When he looked at Ingvar, the meaning in his expression was plain.

It should have been you.

‘As you command, though it pains me,’ he said. ‘Hunt well, Gyrfalkon.’

Ingvar bowed. ‘Hunt well, Fjolnir. I will look for you with the dawn.’

Then Ingvar turned, hastening down the stairs and away from the pack. As he did so, despite his words to Baldr, a part of him hardened, tightening with a resentment that he knew would not easily unravel.