Raven: Sons of Thunder Read Online Free PDF

to the other, ‘from him to you, boy, like a louse.’ He grinned sourly at Cynethryth, pointing a bony finger at her. ‘You should stay . . . away from him,’ he said clumsily in English. ‘Death follows him. Like a stink.’
    ‘It is your own fetid stench that taints the air, old man,’ Cynethryth said, turning her back on the godi. ‘Walk with me, Raven. My legs are happy to be on solid ground and itch to move.’ We left Asgot cackling with a sound like breaking finger bones.
    Further along the beach I saw Bram and Svein bent low, spears in hand, creeping up on a group of five or more slumberous seals, several of which had fox-red fur. I could not imagine twomore conspicuous men, and yet by the grin in Bram’s beard they seemed confident enough.
    ‘We’ll gather some wood for the cookfire,’ I told Cynethryth, nodding towards the high ground beyond the beach. ‘There should be some at the top of that bluff.’ Of course, the higher we went the more chance I would have of catching sight of Fjord-Elk riding the dusk waves, though I knew she was more likely to be moored up somewhere for the night, just like us. Still, I stepped ahead of Cynethryth and she followed me, and though I was relieved that Asgot no longer seemed to want to introduce my throat to his sacrificial knife, his talk of my stealing Sigurd’s luck froze my chest like January rain in a barrel.

CHAPTER THREE

     
    TWO GREAT IRON COOKING POTS WERE FETCHED FROM SERPENT and into them we put the meat and some of the blubber from four seals. Now that the tide was high, the creatures were sleeping in the water, floating upright with just their heads breaking the surface, and we were relieved that they had stopped their strange singing. To the broth we added handfuls of whatever shellfish we had managed to scrounge in the bay, including cockles, mussels and winkles. Arnvid found a clump of fennel and another man, Bothvar, pulled up three large roots of horseradish, which he chopped up and tossed into the bubbling stew, so that our mouths burnt no matter how much water we drank. Bram insisted that ale was the cure, so long as you were prepared to drink enough of it, and we followed his advice wholeheartedly. We soaked this tasty stew up with stale bread taken from the tents on the Wessex shore spread with the remaining seal blubber, which had been melted with a palmful of salt.
    ‘It was a shame to kill that red seal, hey Svein,’ Bram said, his bird’s-nest beard glistening with grease by the cookfire’s stuttering light.
    ‘I am still sad about it,’ Svein replied, slurping the broth from a deep spoon. ‘She had such pretty eyes.’
    ‘Aye, reminded me of your sister,’ Bram dared, winking at Arnvid, who chuckled.
    Sigurd had sent men inland to search for any settlements or houses, warning them to make sure they were not seen. The last thing we wanted was a Frankish levy waking us up in the middle of the night, for Father Egfrith had it in his mind that the holy spirit, so strong in this land, would warn the good Christians of the presence of heathens and they would march as one to kill us, brandishing flaming crosses and swords dipped in holy water.
    ‘Then let them come, monk,’ Sigurd had said, ‘for I’ve yet to see a wooden cross fare well against a Norse axe, and whether these Franks keep their blades in holy water or barrels of virgins’ piss means nothing to me. Such blades will be rusty and not worth fearing.’ The Norsemen had laughed at this, but we kept one eye open, just in case.
    There was no sign of Fjord-Elk . At any one time there were at least six men with their eyes turned to the channel beyond the bay. Even after dark Sigurd set three watches of two men each and these men stared out by the light of the moon and stars in case Ealdred had been daring or stupid enough to follow the coast at night. So we waited, lulled by the ceaseless sighs of the ocean.
    I slept next to Cynethryth, which meant I was also close enough to