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Regaining his feet, Bragi realized that the surprise was spent. Hjarlma and Bjorn were ready to fight. Haaken, Sigurd and Soren were already in the loft. That left only himself and Sturla Ormsson, a man well past his prime, to face two of Trolledyngja's most wicked fighters.
"The cub's as mad as his sire," Hjarlma observed, turning a swordstroke with ease. "Don't get yourself killed, boy. Inger would never forgive me." His remark was a sad commentary on the nature of Man. Had the Old King not died unexpectedly, Hjarlma would have become Bragi's father-in-law. The arrangements had been made last summer.
Don't think, Bragi told himself. Don't listen. Old Sven and his father had beaten those lessons into him with blunted swords. Don't talk back. Either remain absolutely silent or, as Ragnar did, bellow a lot.
Hjarlma knew Ragnar's style well. They had fought side by side too many times. He handled it easily in the Wolf's son.
Bragi entertained no illusions. The Thane was bigger, stronger, craftier and had far more experience than he. His sole goal became to survive till Haaken had finished in the loft.
Sturla had the same idea, but Bjorn was too quick for him. The traitor's blade broke through his guard. He staggered back.
Two pairs of ice-blue eyes stared into Bragi's own.
"Kill the pup," Bjorn growled. His fear was plain to hear.
As stately as one of the caravels the longships pursued down the southern coasts, Helga glided between them.
"Stand aside, witch woman."
Helga locked gazes with the Thane. Her lips moved without speaking Hjarlma did not back down, but neither did he press. She turned to Bjorn. The traitor went pale, could not meet her terrible eyes.
Haaken jumped from the loft, snatched a spear from a far wall. Soren and Sigurd came down by the ladder, but nearly as fast.
"Time has run out," Hjarlma observed laconically. "We have to go." He directed Bjorn to the door. "Should've expected them to slip the picket." He whipped his axe past Helga, struck the sword from Bragi's hand, creased the youth's cheek on the backstroke. "Be more civil when I return, boy. Or be gone."
Bragi sighed as the wings of death withdrew. Hjarlma had done all he dared because of old friendship.
The fear of Ragnar haunted Bjorn's eyes throughout the encounter. He kept looking round as if expecting the Wolf to materialize out of fireplace smoke. He was eager to flee. He and Hjarlma plunged into the night, where the snow had begun to fall again.
Helga started tending Bragi's cheek and berating him for not having killed Bjorn.
"Bjorn hasn't escaped the storm yet," Bragi told her.
Haaken, Soren and Sigurd lingered near the doorway. They kept it open a crack. The women, children and old folks of the stead, who had done their best to remain invisible during the skirmish, tended Sturla or wept softly for those who had not returned.
There was no joy in Ragnar's longhouse, only the numbness that follows disaster.
Draukenbring had come to the end of its years, but the realization of that fact had not yet struck home. The survivors faced uprooting, diaspora and persecution by the Pretender's adherents.
The falling snow muted the cries and clanging of weapons, but not completely. "There," Bragi told his mother. One of his father's howling war cries had torn the belly out of the night.
Ragnar soon staggered through the doorway, bloody from chin to knee. Much was his own. He had his stomach opened by an axe stroke.
With a peal of mad laughter he held Bjorn's head high, like a lantern in the night. Bjorn's horror remained fixed on his features.
Ragnar mouthed one of his battle cries, then collapsed.
Bragi, Haaken and Helga were beside him instantly. But it was too late. His will had, finally, broken.
Helga plucked at the ice in his hair and beard, ran fingers lightly over his face. A tear dribbled down her cheek. Bragi and Haaken withdrew. Even in her loss the plunder-bride from the south could not shed her pride, could not reveal the real depth of her feelings.
Bragi and Haaken crowded the main fire, and shared their misery.
The funeral was managed in haste. It was an expediency, unworthy of the dead man, rushed because Hjarlma would return. It should have been a warrior's funeral with pyres and ricks, following a week of mourning and ritual.
Instead, Bragi, Haaken, Sigurd and Soren carried Ragnar up Kamer Strotheide, above the tree- and summer snow-lines, and placed him, seated upright, in a stone cairn facing both Draukenbring and the more distant Tonderhofn.
"Someday," Bragi promised as he and Haaken placed the last stone. "Someday we'll come back and do it right."
"Someday," Haaken agreed.
It would be a long tomorrow, they knew.
They shed their tears, alone together there, then went down the mountain to begin the new life.
"This is how he managed it," said Helga, while watching her sons chop at the frozen earth by the broken hearthstone. She held a golden bracelet, slim but ornately wrought. "It's half of a pair. Hjarlma wore the other. Each reacted to the other's approach. When Bjorn drew close, Hjarlma realized that Ragnar was coming."
Bragi grunted. He did not care now.
"I think I hit it," Haaken said.
Bragi started digging with his hands. He soon exposed a small chest.
Sigurd and Soren arrived with the packs. The four surviving warriors would go south from the shingle pine.
The chest proved to be shallow and light. It was not locked. Little lay within. A small bag of southern coins, another of gemstones, an ornate dagger, a small parchment scroll on which a crude map had been inscribed hastily. And a copper amulet.
"You keep the valuables," Bragi told his mother.
"No. Ragnar had his reasons for keeping these things together. And of treasure he left me plenty elsewhere."
Bragi considered. His father had been secretive. The forest round Draukenbring might be filled with pots of gold. "All right." He pushed the things into his pack.
Then came the moment he had dreaded, the time to take the first southward step. He stared at his mother. She stared at him. Haaken stared at the ground.
The cord was hard to cut.
For the first time in memory Helga revealed her feelings in public—though she did not exactly go to pieces.
She pulled Haaken to her, held him for nearly two minutes, whispering. Bragi caught the sparkling of a tear. She brushed it away irritably as she released her foster son. Embarrassed, Bragi looked away. But there was no evading emotion. Sigurd and Soren were, once again, parting with their own families.
His mother's embrace engulfed him. She held him tighter than he had thought possible. She had always seemed so small and frail.
"Be careful," she said. And what less banal was there to say? At such a parting, probably forever, there were no words to convey true feelings. Language was the tool of commerce, not love.
"And take care of Haaken. Bring him home." No doubt she had told Haaken the same thing. She pulled away, unclasped a locket she had worn for as long as Bragi could remember. She fastened it round his neck. "If you have no other hope, take this to the House of Bastanos in the Street of the Dolls in Hellin Daimiel. Give it to the concierge, as an introduction to the lord of that house. He'll send it inside. One of the partners will come to question you. Tell him:
‘Elhabe an dantice, elhabe an cawine. Ci hibde clarice, elhabe an savan. Ci magden trebil, elhabe din bachel.'
He'll understand."
She made him repeat the verse till she was sure he had memorized it.
"Good. No more can be done. Just don't trust anyone you don't have to. And come home as soon as you can. I'll be here waiting."