Page 101 of Lord of Fire and Ice

Arn’s breath hissed over his teeth. “Seid-craft,” he said with disgust. “I always suspected you of it.”

“’Tis no magick.” Brandr had never confided in Arn about his gift of controlling the flame. Now didn’t seem an opportune time to reveal his unusual ability. “We must use what we’ve been given and fight them before they reach our land.”

“Then you’ll sail alone. Hear me. On pain of banishment, none of the men of Jondal will go with you.”

One ship against twenty-five. “I must still go.”

Beneath his face mask, Arn growled like a wounded bear. “Even now, you cannot honor your pledge to obey me. Even now.”

Hilde sobbed softly in the corner.

“Shut up, woman. I’m not dead yet,” Arn said, gasping between each word. “At least I die with honor, while my brother lives an oath-breaker.”

“Arn, I respect you as my jarl and brother of my blood, but if I do what you ask, I embrace defeat,” Brandr said softly. “If that means the lives of the people of this fjord are worth more than my honor, so be it.”

Arn turned his face to the wall. “Take none of my men with you. At least obey me in that. Now leave me.”

“Good-bye, Arn,” Brandr said, fully expecting to see his brother in Hel when next they met. Their whole life together had been one long argument. Why wouldn’t they expect to continue this one in that cold hall?

“Brandr.” As his hand lifted the door latch, Arn’s ghostly voice stopped him. “Luck in battle, little brother.”

Emotion choked Brandr’s throat. He slipped out of his brother’s death chamber without speaking again. Finally, he was giving Arn the last word.

***

Malvar Bloodaxe stood on the highest point of Tysnes Isle and surveyed the mouth of Hardanger Fjord spread wide before him. The moon scattered a line of silver coins across the dark water, marking the path to glory, to riches, to power.

Weeks ago, he’d sent his minions into the fjord to seek out and dismantle the signal fires at strategic points along the waterway. He hoped they’d completed their task, since he was already firmly secure in his base here on Tysnes. He also expected some of them would act on his advice and use a human shield to keep the fires from being lit, as he had here at his staging camp.

The horror of having to burn someone they knew to summon aid would only add to the fear and hopelessness he and his forces counted on.

Malvar had always been cat-eyed in the dark. He turned now to look at the lad they’d strapped to the top of Tysnes’s pile of dry wood. The boy sagged against his bonds, but Malvar knew from the shallow movement of his chest he still lived. They gave the youth water but no food. Even so, Malvar judged he’d last as long as he was needed.

He cast a sideways glance at the man standing beside him, Ulf Skallagrimsson, the onetime Jarl of Jondal. He was the first of Malvar’s converts, the first in a long string of expected capitulations from among the nobility of the fjord. He’d broken the jarl, purified him with pain. Ulf was a shadow of the man he’d been when Malvar fished him from the sea.

After Ulf divulged the secret of the signal fires and the complicated arrangements for mutual defense among the farmsteads and jarldoms in Hardanger, it was a natural next step for him to renounce the Court of Asgard and embrace worship of the Old Ones.

“I wish I could take you with me when we sail on the morrow,” Malvar said, laying a heavy hand on Ulf’s shoulder. His mouth twitched in a smile when the muscles under the man’s coarse tunic trembled with remembered pain. “You might have convinced your people to give up without bloodshed. In the new order, we will need large numbers of thralls to serve the elite. But the Old Ones demand blood.”

Malvar squeezed Ulf’s tortured shoulder till he nearly buckled. “So we must give it to them.”

“Ja, my lord Bloodaxe,” Ulf said, slurring his words through broken teeth.

“Stand the watch here with the others while I prepare to place my foot on the neck of my enemies,” Malvar ordered. “The fools of Hardanger intended these fires as a means of safety, lit to warn of intruders. Instead, the flames will celebrate my triumph. Once I have subjugated this fjord, I will light the inmost signal fire. It will begin the chain of flame from the inside out instead of the outside in. The fjord will blaze like a shower of stars from the deepest cove to this base on Tysnes, and all will know a new power has arisen in Hardanger.”

“Ja, my lord,” the former jarl said woodenly.

“Make that Your Highness,” Malvar said. “Even a fool like King Olav will have no choice but to meet me with his own forces, which we will handily defeat. When I am king, I will make a soup bowl of the old fool’s skull. And make no mistake. I will be king. You may as well acknowledge it now.”

Ulf bent in a stiff bow. “Majesty.”

Malvar patted his shoulder again for the pleasure of seeing the man wince. It had been dislocated so badly and so often it would never be right again.

“Carry on, Ulf Skallagrimsson. Guard my victory light well. It will be the last to burn, so it must be the most glorious.”

Malvar headed down the path toward the longhouse he’d appropriated for his use. He’d already decided he’d make Ulf his first sacrifice to the Old Ones once the ancient spirits gave him this victory. But he’d miss the jarl.

He’d grown to enjoy his screams.