The Prow Beast. Robert Low

least.’

      And we laughed, so shrill and brittle in the pewter day that little Toki was as deep-voiced as any of us, all bright with the relief of survival.

      Yet the blood on Botolf’s breeks was wet and the stain grew as we ground up the track to join the other carts. When Ingrid saw it her hand flew to her mouth and she called out for Bjaelfi, then huckled her big husband off, while little flame-haired Helga stood, solemn eyed, thumb in her mouth.

      The others crowded round, wanting to know what had happened and, for a moment, the faces swam as if under-water and I wanted badly to sit. Thorgunna saw it and chided me in out of the rain and I sat down, listening to it stutter off the canvas; it came to me then that they had not progressed far and had made camp while it was still light.

      I told them what had happened while Aoife and Thordis tended to Kuritsa, who was looked at with new, grudging admiration – but it was the news of Styrbjorn’s defeat which occupied them most.

      ‘At least the wee bairn is safe,’ said a familiar voice and Onund Hnufa shuffled painfully forward. ‘I kept trying to warn you, but all that my mouth would make was “bairn”.’

      I felt a flood of warmth, as if I had stepped in front of a hearthfire.

      ‘I see you, Onund,’ I told him. ‘It seems you are not so easily killed, then.’

      He acknowledged it with a wry smile, but you could see that they had used him hard, for he was gaunt and his face was marked from the burns, still dark, raw-red under the grease the women had salved him with; the hump that gave him his by-name seemed sharper and higher than before on his shoulder.