Blood Feud Read Online Free PDF

that the firelight shone through it, clouded with a kind of milky shadow at one end, like the ghost of a fern frond caught in the liquid gold. It was beautiful; and as I sat holding it in my hands, it grew warm, and seemed to give off a curious feeling of liveness, after the way of amber, which never forgets that it was once the sun-warm tears of a living tree.
    I remember thinking, ‘This thing has power! Surely it has power of some sort! And if he misses it in the midst of such a night, he will not know where he lost it. And if he does not miss it, then it may be that without it, harm will come to him.’ That was a thought that would have angered Priest Aldred as much as the Midwinter Fires; but I did not care. Hurriedly I knotted up the broken ends of the thong, and thrust the amber into the breast of my rough tunic. I smoored the fire, and pulled out somebody’s spare cloak, for I had none of my own, and outside sleet was spitting down a chill north wind. I took Thormod’s hunting-knife from the shelf abovehis sleeping-place, and thrust it into my belt. Then I opened the door that creaked on its sodden leather hinges, and ducked out into the night.
    The King’s forecourt was in almost as much of an uproar as the town below, and at Yule, no very careful watch was kept on the townward gate, or a thrall leaving the Garrison quarters after dark might have had to give account of himself. As it was, with the borrowed cloak hitched high to cover the thrall-ring round my neck, I got through easily enough, and plunged into the narrow winding ways where men surged to and fro with torches and jars of ale.
    I made my way up one alley and down another, diving into ale-house after ale-house, peering into every shadowed or torchlit face I passed. Again and again I saw men from the Garrison, several times I came up with men of the
Sea Swallow’s
crew, but never a sign of Thormod. In a wine-shop down the boat-strand I even found Haki, but Thormod was not with him, having gone off on some business of his own.
    By that time battles were beginning to break out in different parts of the town; and as I turned into the dark mouth of a wynd, heading back from the boat-strand towards St Columba Church, a small vicious fight was spilling out from an open torchlit doorway at the far end. I saw a struggling knot of men, and caught the wicked dart of a knife blade; and in the same instant, out of the snarling worry of sound, a voice pitched to carry from end to end of a small war fleet against a full gale sent up the shout – ‘
Sea Swallow! Sea Swallow
! To me!’
    I had heard that kind of shout before. It was the recognized signal by which any member of a ship’s crew who ran into trouble could bring any and every shipmate within hearing racing to his aid. And I knew the voice. I’d have known it if it had come straight out of the Mouth of Hell.
    I sent up the answering call – ‘
Sea Swallow
coming!’ – andheaded up the alleyway, freeing the hunting-knife from my belt as I ran, to hurl myself joyfully into the fight. In the midst of it, Thormod had got his back to a wall and was holding off, as best he could, some half-dozen Irishmen out for blood. I dived in, flinging one man off with my shoulder, ducked between two more, and came up at Thormod’s side. Yelling faces were all about us. I felt Thormod’s shoulder where mine pressed against it, and the smell of blood came up into the back of my nose. I saw the flash of a knife and brought up my own to meet it, and felt the jar as the two blades rang together. But for me the fight was almost as short as my fight with the cattle raiders. I turned aside another thrust, and I think got in a glancing stroke of my own; and then someone hooked my feet from under me, and I went down among the legs of the battle. Somebody’s heel caught me on the old hurt on the side of my head. I was aware through a growing chaos of Thormod standing astride me, and above me in the reeling turmoil heard his