Brand goggled. “Gone to Drottningsholm? But no man’s allowed on the island overnight. And the bridges are all guarded.”
Cwicca grinned, his gap teeth showing. “That’s all right, skipper,” he said in the Anglo-Norse pidgin of the Wayman army in England. “We’re not so dumb. We know that. If he’s gone, he’ll have slipped across on the ice, see? We went down and had a little look this afternoon. It’s still plenty thick enough, no sign of cracking.”
Brand stared at Cwicca and the others, horror evident on his face. He tried to speak, failed, tried again.
“Don’t you English fools know anything?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “In the fjords this time of year, the ice doesn’t crack. It rots from the bottom up. Fills with water. Then one morning it isn’t there any more. It doesn’t crack. It just sinks!”
The wind struck them with redoubled force as soon as Shef and Karli were well out on their last stretch of ice, as if they had come out from under the lee of some unseen headland. With it came a whirl of horizontal, driving rain. Shef flinched as the first drops struck his face, expecting stinging hail or ice-storm. Then he put his hand up to the drops that trickled down his face, and wondered. Rain. So the frost had broken. Would they be able to get back, once across? No time to worry about that now. And in the rain they had no need to fear being seen by the bridge-guards.
“Listen,” he said to Karli. “I don’t like this rain. The ice may crack. We can both swim. The thing to do, if it cracks under us, is keep your head up. Don’t get caught under the ice and not know which way to turn. If we’re in a hole in the ice, swim to the edge of it and put your weight on the ice. If it cracks, go forward and try again. When we get to somewhere thick enough to bear us, crawl out and keep crawling. And Karli, tuck your sword in your belt again. You may need two hands.”
As Karli fumbled to obey, moved by some impulse, Shef looked up at the dark shore still a hundred yards in front, hefted the ‘Gungnir’ spear in his hand, trotted two paces forward, turned and hurled the spear ahead of him. He saw it streak forward, land, and skid on along the ice, its clatter drowned by the hiss of the rain.
As his foot came down he felt the ice give. Both men stood motionless for a moment, listening for the crack. Nothing. Still ice under their feet.
“Maybe it just came loose from the shore,” muttered Karli.
They stepped on, cautiously, planting their feet with utter delicacy. One step. Two.
Cold bit into Shef’s boot as he put it down. Water. A puddle on the ice? Water in the other boot. Suddenly the cold was at his knees, his thighs, he felt his vitals retract convulsively. Shef stared round for the break in the ice, but there was nothing there, his feet were still planted solidly but the ice was dropping beneath…
The black water closed over Shef’s head and he found himself struggling desperately to stay afloat. There were hands round his neck, clutching from behind, hands like Ivar’s, as if Ivar were back from the dead.
Shef turned furiously inside Karli’s panic clutch till they were face to face, brought his hands up together inside Karli’s embrace, joined them and swung them down edge first on the bridge of Karli’s nose. Reared up out of the water and swung again, felt gristle give beneath the blow. Reared up to swing again, felt the strangling clutch release.
“Sorry, all right, I’m all right.” Karli let go and began to tread water. Shef realized at once the furious bite of the water. He had swum in cold water often enough, in the fens, for sport or to cross where there was no bridge. This was different. The cold had bitten through every garment he wore, filled them all, was draining the strength from his body with every instant that passed, the cold and the waterlogged wool and leather both combining to drag him down into the mud.