A spear smashed through his back and he arched upward violently.
His vision swam, his last sight was Kareen’s face.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have been here.’
Orsa gazed down at the body, then tore the spear from the clansman’s back.
‘He was a madman,’ muttered a warrior behind him.
‘He was a man,’ said Orsa, turning and pushing his way through the throng.
The Aenir milled round the corpses for a while, then drifted back to their forgotten meals.
‘He was a fine swordsman,’ said a lean, wolfish warrior, dusting off the chicken leg he’d dropped in the dirt.
‘It was stupid,’ offered a second man, gathering up a bulging wineskin.
‘He was baresark,’ said the first.
‘Nonsense. We all know what happens to a berserker – he goes mad and attacks in a blind frenzy.’
‘No, that’s what we do. The clansmen are different. They go cold and deadly, where we are hot. But the effect is the same. They don’t care.’
‘Taken to thinking now, Snorri?’
‘This place makes you think,’ said Snorri. ‘Just look around you. Wouldn’t you be willing to die for a land like this?’
‘I don’t want to die for any piece of land. A woman, maybe. Not dirt, though.’
‘Did you enjoy the clan woman you took last night?’
‘Shut your stinking mouth!’
‘Killed herself, I hear.’
‘I said shut it!’
‘Easy, Bemar! There’s no need to lose your temper.’
‘It’s this place, it gets under my skin. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I felt it in my bones. Did you see the look in that clansman’s eyes? like he thought we were nothing. A flock of sheep with fangs! You could laugh, but he had just slain seven men. Seven!’
‘I know,’ said Snorri. ‘It was the same last night with their sword-ring. It was like hurling yourself against a cliff-face. There was no give in them at all; no fear. That scout Ongist caught and blood-eagled – he didn’t make a sound, just glared at us as we opened his ribs. Maybe they’re not people at all.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Bemar, dropping his voice to a whisper.
‘The witch woman, Agnetha. She can turn men into animals. Maybe the clans are all animals turned into men.’
‘That’s stupid.’
‘They don’t act like men,” argued Snorri. ‘Have you heard one clansman beg? Have you heard any tales of such a thing?’
‘They die like men,’ said Bemar.
‘I think they are more. You’ve heard Asbidag’s order. Not one man, woman or child to be left alive. No slaves. All dead. Doesn’t it strike you as strange?’
‘I don’t want to think about it. And I don’t want to talk about it,’ muttered Bemar, hurling aside the wineskin.
‘Wolf men, that’s what they are,’ whispered Snorri.
Caswallon watched helplessly as Durk walked back towards the valley. He knew the clansman was seeking death, and he could not blame him for it. Kareen had been his life, his joy. Even as Maeg meant everything to Caswallon.
The clan column moved on and Caswallon took his place at the head alongside Leofas. Crofters from outlying areas joined the exodus as the day wore on, and many were the questions levelled at the new lord.
Where were they going? What would they do? What had happened to one man’s sister? Another’s brother? Why did they not turn and fight? Why had the Aenir attacked? Where was Cambil? Who elected Caswallon?
The clansman lost his temper before dusk, storming away from the column and running quickly to the top of a nearby hill. Around him the dying sun lit the valleys of the Farlain, bathing them in blood. Caswallon sank to the ground, staring out over the distant peaks of High Druin.
‘It’s all a lie,’ he said softly. Then he began to chuckle. ‘You’ve lived a damn lie.’
Poor Cambil. Poor, lonely Cambil.
‘You should not have feared me, cousin,’ Caswallon told the gathering darkness. ‘Your father knew; he was wiser than you.’
The night before the young Caswallon had left his foster-father’s house for the last time, Padris had taken him to the northern meadow and there presented him with a cloak, a dagger and two gold pieces.