Crowbone by Robert Low Page B

leader had a helmet in the Gardariki style, with a white horsehair plume braiding out of it, like smoke from a roofhole. All of his men had similar helms, but his was worked with brass and silver. Truly, this
knarr
had teeth.
    ‘A hard fistful,’ growled Balle, studying the men, tallying the possibilities. ‘Yet their leader is only a stripling and there’s no more than a handful of nithing sailors.’
    The Red Brothers numbered fifty-eight and, after all their bad raid-luck, even the ones who did not like Balle much and thought he still had matters to prove would follow him: it would be an easy prize with the numbers on their side. Even if it was empty, the
knarr
alone was worth it.
    Mar felt Kaup shift beside him, tasted the big dark man’s unease along with the salt from the sighing sea. It smelled of blood and his hackles stirred a little.
    Balle watched and waited, feeling his men filter up in knots and pairs to look, not wanting to turn round to see how many, which would have made him look as if he was anxious. He was pleased, all the same, when he caught sight of some, out of the corner of one eye; they were armed and ready.
    He would wait until the crew of this fat trader had finished unloading whatever it was in the bundle they thought to appease him with. The stripling who led them would come, arms out and easy to show he meant no harm but wanted only to share warmth and food and maybe trade whatever was in the bundle. He does not realise, Balle thought, with a lurch of blood-savage, that all he has is already mine.
    The stripling came and with him was a worryingly big man with a hook-bitted axe leading the helmeted ones carrying the burden. The stripling came with a spear in each fist and the walk of a man who did not want to appease anyone, which Mar and Kaup noticed and frowned at, glancing sideways at Balle. They all noticed the youth’s coin-weighted braids, the neat crop of new beard and the strange, odd-coloured eyes.
    Balle had seen it, too, and pushed the worry of it from him as if it was a bothersome dog. The shine of that rich
knarr
was on him and the stripling was still a stripling, who had done as Balle had seen in his head, even if he had a giant at his back, spears in his fists, eyes of different colours and a measure of arrogance which had taken in the Burned Man and showed no shock. Balle had been disappointed at that; the sight of Kaup always made northmen lick uneasy lips and should have made this boy at least blink a little.
    Then he saw the truth of what he had thought was a trade bundle and everything in him melted away, running like water out of his bowels and belly, so that he could not move and almost fell where he stood.
    It was no wrap of trade goods. It was Grima.
    Mar and Kaup grunted, the shock of it stirred through the rest of the Red Brothers like ripples from a stone in a quiet pool. Grima, who was thought drowned and dead, was back, sitting in a throne carried by great mailed warriors, guarded by a giant, preceded by …
    ‘Prince Olaf, son of Tryggve,’ announced the stripling loudly. ‘Come to hold up the falling roofbeams of Grima’s sky. Come to bring him back to those who tried to foist red murder on him.’
    Now this was real luck to men who knew the shape and taste of it, for Grima had gone into the sea with nothing but the cloth on his back and yet, here he was, sprung out of it, with warriors and a prince at his command.
    This was god-favour if ever it was seen and if Grima was so smiled on, then the man who had tried to kill him clearly was not – both those who were Christmenn and those who followed Asgard stepped away from Balle. He felt men draw away from him and anger surged in, which was as good as courage.
    Then Grima stirred in his chair and Balle felt the better for seeing how weak and near death the old man was, saw the dark stains on the wrappings round his hands. He saw, also, the little figure appear suddenly from behind the mailed throne-carriers, a