“Of what kind?” rasped Starkadh. “I the chieftain, later the king; you my skald and redesman— But that’s not what you said!” He swallowed. “Or do you also want to be a king?” Brightening: “Surely! We can divide the world between us.”
“We would die trying.”
“Our fame will never die.”
“Or worse, we would fall out with each other. How shall two stay together when always they deal in death and betrayal?”
At once Gest saw his mistake. He had intended to say that such was the nature of power. Seizing it and holding it were alike filthy. But before he could go on, Starkadh clapped hand to hilt. The rocky face went dawn-pale. “So you besmirch my honor,” he said from the bottom of his gullet.
Gest lifted a hand, palm outward. “No. Let me explain.”
Starkadh leaned close. His nostrils flared. “What have you heard about me? Spew it out!”
Gest knew starkly that he must. “They tell how you took one small king captive and hanged him for an offering to Odin, after you had promised him his life. They tell how you murdered another in his bath house, for pay. But—”
“I had to!” Starkadh yelled. “Ever was I an outsider. The rest were, were too young, and—“ He uttered a bawl like an aurochs bull’s.
“And your loneliness lashed you till you struck back, blindly,” Gest said. “I understand. I did when first I heard about you. How often have I felt thus? I remember deeds of mine that hurt me worse than fire. It’s merely that I am not a killer.”
Starkadh spat on the ground. “Right. You’ve hugged your years to you like a crone wrapping herself in her blanket.”
“But don’t you see,” Gest cried, “things have changed for us both? Now we’ve better work to do than attack folk who never harmed us. It was the lust for fame, wealth, power that brought you to dishonor.”
Starkadh screamed. His sword flew free. He hewed.
Gest shifted like a shadow. Nonetheless the edge ripped down his left arm. Blood poured forth, drenched the cloth, dripped into the streamlet that ran from the spring.
He drifted back, drew his knife, halted hi half a crouch. Starkadh stood fast. “I should … chop you in twain … for what you said,” he panted. Gulping air: “But I think you will die soon enough of that stroke.” Laughter clanked. “A shame. I did hope you’d be a friend. The first real friend of my life. Well, the Norns will it otherwise.”
Our natures do, Gest thought. And: How easily I could kill you. How open you stand to a hundred martial tricks I know.
“Instead, I shall have to go on as erstwhile,” said Starkadh, “alone.”
Let it be so, thought Gest.
With the fingers of his right hand he searched below his torn shirt and pushed together the lips of his wound. Pain he made into something apart from himself, like the mists that broke under the strengthening light. He gave his mind to the blood flow.
Starkadh kicked the shelter aside, fetched his mail, drew it over the underpadding in which he had spent the night. He donned coif and helmet, belted on sword, picked up shield. When he was ready to leave, he stared in astonishment at the other man. “What, are you still on your feet?” he said. “Shall I make an end of you?”
Had he tried that, it would have been the end of him. But he stopped, shivered, turned away. “No,” he mumbled. “This is all too spooky. I’m off to my own doom, Nornagest.”
He lumbered up the trail, into the woods and beyond sight.
Then Gest could sit down and bring a whole heed to the steering of his body. He had stopped the bleeding before he suffered overmuch loss, though he would be weak for a few days. No matter. He could stay here until he was fit to travel; the earth would provide for him. He began to hasten the knitting of the flesh.
He dared not wish he were able to heal the wound inside.
“HOWEVER, WE only met fleetingly, Starkadh and I,” Gest went on. “Afterward hearsay about him reached me now and then, until I went abroad again; and when I came back he was long dead, slain as he had wanted.”