Snow-Walker Read Online Free PDF Page B

It’s bad luck. I don’t know how you can wear it.”
    Thorkil scowled. “I will if I want. It’s mine.”
    Jessa shook her head. “It’s hers,” she said, thinking how vain he was.
    â€œWell, don’t throw yours in the sea.” Helgi laughed. “Throw it to me instead. The sea is rich enough.”
    â€œI might.”
    Thorkil looked up suddenly. “Your men. Are they coming with us all the way?”
    â€œTo the very door,” Helgi said grimly. Behind him the oarsmen’s talk faltered, as if they had listened for his answer.
    The ship reached the coast late that evening, the watchman of Tarva challenging them suddenly out of the darkness, his voice ringing across the black water. Jolted awake, Jessa heard the helmsman yell an answer, and saw the lights of the settlement ripple under the bows as the ship edged in among the low wharves.
    They spent that night in the house of a merchant named Savik, who knew Helgi well, warm in his hall with three oarsmen sprawling and dicing near the only doorway. Where the rest went to, Jessa did not ask. She managed a brief word with Thorkil at the table.
    â€œNo chances yet.”
    He threw her a troubled look. “You heard what he said. We won’t have any chances.”
    â€œYes, but keep your eyes open. You never know.”
    â€œI suppose we could always jump overboard,” he said savagely.
    Later she slept fitfully. In her sleep she felt the rocking of the boat, as if it still carried her down the long, icy fjord, and there at the end of it, floating on the sea, was a great, dark building, the winds howling in its empty passages like wolves.
    In the morning they left early, as the wind was good, and as soon as they reached open water the sail was dropped with a flapping of furled canvas and the slap of ropes—a single rectangular sheet woven of strong striped cloth. The wind plumped it out into a straining arc; the ship shuddered and plunged through the spray. Jessa climbed up into the prow and watched the white seabirds wheel overhead and scream in the cliffs and crannies. Seals bobbed their heads out and watched her with dark, intelligent eyes; in bays their sluggish shining bodies lay like great pebbles on the shingle.
    She turned to the oarsmen squatting in the bottom of the boat out of the wind; some sleeping, others gaming with dice for brooches or metal rings—Thorkil with them, and losing badly it seemed.
    After a while Helgi clambered over and sat beside her.
    â€œDo you feel well? No sickness?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    He grinned. “Yes, it may well come. But we have to put off some cargo at Wormshold this afternoon—that will give you a chance to go ashore. It’s a big, busy settlement, under the Worm’s Head.”
    â€œWorm’s Head?”
    â€œYes. Never seen it? I’ll show you.” He took out a knife and scratched a few lines into the wooden prow. “It’s a spit of land, look, that juts out into the sea. Like this. It looks like a dragon’s head, very rough and rocky—a great hazard. There are small islets here, and skerries at the tip. The Flames, we call them. The currents are fierce around them. That dragon’s eaten many a good ship. But you’ll see it soon.”
    And she did, as the ship flew through the morning. At first a gray smudge on the sea; then a rocky shape, growing as they sped toward it into a huge dragon’s head and neck of stone, stretched out chin-deep in the gray waves, its mouth wide in a snarl, dark hollows and caves marking nostrils and eyes. The wind howled as they sailed in under it, the swell crashing and sucking and booming deep in the gashed, treacherous rocks.
    Wormshold was squeezed into a small haven in the dragon’s neck. As soon as Jessa saw it, she knew this would be their chance, perhaps their only chance. It was a busy trading place, full of ships, merchants, fishermen, peddlers, skalds,