Mark Lawrence - Prince of Fools

Snorri had a different solution. He reached out before him, axe extended, running faster than is possible for any man building for a swing. The turn of speed spoiled the Broke-Oar’s timing, his cutting edge arriving a split second too late, the haft of his axe just below the blade hammered into Snorri’s raised shoulder, while Snorri’s axe smashed into the Broke-Oar’s neck, not with the cutting edge but bracketing the man’s throat with the horns of the blade.

That should have been an end to it. A narrow piece of metal driven against a throat by a powerful man. Somehow, though, the Broke-Oar slammed his buckler into the side of Snorri’s head and fell back, clasping his neck. Both men should have been down, but instead they reeled, unsteady on their feet, then came together like bears, grappling.

Ein had killed one of his two opponents and now wrestled the second, both men clutching knives, trying to drive them into each other’s faces whilst stopping the other man doing the same. Tuttugu had killed his foe, but the Red Viking had loosed his dagger before Tuttugu split his head. I couldn’t see how bad the wound was, but the speed with which the blood spilled over the fat man’s hands where he clutched his belly said it couldn’t be good.

The two giants stood, fingers interlocked, straining one against the other. Purple in the face and spraying crimson with each explosive exhalation, the Broke-Oar forced Snorri down, inch by inch. Muscle heaped, veins bulged fit to burst, both men groaned and laboured for breath. It seemed bones must give-that in a sudden snap the immense forces would shatter limbs-but all that happened was that by degrees, pumping blood past the bindings on shoulder and side, Snorri gave, until with a swift release he was on his knees, the Broke-Oar still pressing down upon him.

Tuttugu took one dripping hand from his belly and bent with agonizing slowness to retrieve his axe. The Broke-Oar, without even seeming to have looked, kicked behind him and broke the Undoreth’s knee, sending Tuttugu sprawling with a scream of pain. Snorri tried to surge up and got a leg beneath him, but with a roar the Broke-Oar drove him back down.

Ein and the Hardanger man were still rolling on the floor, both cut now. I looked at my sword, already scarlet from tip to pommel. That’s Snorri there. I had to say it to myself. Companion through innumerable miles, through weeks of hardship, dangers. . The Broke-Oar pressed him lower, both men howling animal threats. A sudden twist and Sven Broke-Oar had Snorri’s throat in his huge right paw, their other hands still locked, Snorri’s unburdened hand trying to tear the fingers from his neck.

The Broke-Oar was exposed. Head bowed. “Christ, Jalan, just do it!” I had to shout the words at myself. And, reluctant at first, picking up speed, I ran towards them, sword overhead. I’d not wanted to hit the man in the tower, not even with an arrow from a hundred yards off. Sven Broke-Oar I wanted to die, right then, right there, and if it had to be me to do it. .

I brought both arms down, scything my blade through the air, and somehow in that instant the Broke-Oar tore his off hand from Snorri’s grasp and interposed his buckler. The shock of it rang through my sword as if I’d hit stone, shaking it from my grip. One swift lunge, pushing Snorri over backwards with the hand still locked to his throat, and the giant punched me just below the heart, a combined impact of broad knuckles and the edge of his buckler. The breath left me in a wordless whoosh, ribs snapped, and I fell as if hamstrung.

From the floor I saw the Broke-Oar flick off the buckler and lock his second hand around Snorri’s throat. I managed to draw the breath that Snorri couldn’t. The air wheezed into me like acid poured into my lungs, ribs grating around their fractures.

Sven Broke-Oar started to shake Snorri, slowly at first, then more fiercely as the younger man’s face darkened with the strangulation. “You should have stayed gone, Snagason. The North has nothing else like me. It takes more than a boy to bring me down.”

I could see the life leaving Snorri, arms falling away limp, and still all I could manage was the next breath. Ein had fallen away from his enemy, both of them lying spent. Tuttugu lay in a spreading pool of his own blood, watching but beyond helping.

“Time to die, Snorri.” And the muscles bunched in the Broke-Oar’s forearms, tightening a grip that could snap an oar.

Somewhere, unseen, the sun set.

Snorri lifted his arms. His hands closed on Sven Broke-Oar’s wrists, and where they touched the Hardanger man’s flesh it turned black. A snarl twisted the Broke-Oar’s lips as Snorri raised his head and pulled the fingers from his neck. A sudden, vicious downward yank and both the Broke-Oar’s forearms snapped, the bone jutting from crimson gore. A backhanded blow and he fell, sprawling beside Tuttugu.

“You?” Snorri’s voice blending with Aslaug’s as he stood. “It’s me the North should walk in fear of.” He held the discarded buckler now, nothing but darkness in his eyes.

“Better.” From his place on the ground Sven Broke-Oar managed a laugh. “Better. You might even stand a chance. Make a ruin of them, Snorri, send them howling back to Hel!”

Snorri knelt beside Sven Broke-Oar, leaning in.

“They put a fear in me, Snorri, gods damn them. Gods damn them all.”

“Where’s Freja?” Snorri took Broke-Oar around the neck, pounding his head against the floor. “My son? Where is he?” Each question roared into the man’s face.

“You know!” Broke-Oar spat out a bloody answer.

“You’ll tell me!” Snorri set his thumbs against the Broke-Oar’s eyes.

I fainted at that point, just as Snorri started to press and Broke-Oar let out a scream that was half laughter.

Those dark and insensible moments were the only period of comfort I had in that black fort. Washed away too soon by the passage of what could only have been seconds.

“Time to die, Broke-Oar.” Snorri bent low over the fallen giant, hands crimson.

A wet red splutter, then, “Burn the dead-”

Sven Broke-Oar had time for no more. Snorri crushed his skull with a sharp blow of the heavy buckler.

“Snorri.” I couldn’t manage above a whisper, but he looked up, the darkness fading from his eyes, leaving them clear and ice-blue.

“Jal!” Despite his wounds he was at my side in a moment, seizing the hood of my winter coat, deaf to my protests. For one moment I thought he was going to help me, but instead he dragged me across to lie beside Ein.

The Red Viking next to Ein looked dead enough, but Snorri took the knife from the man’s hand and cut his throat with it just to be sure. “Alive?” He turned to Ein and slapped him. Ein groaned and opened his eyes. “Good. What can you do for him, Jal?”

“Me?” I lifted an arm. I don’t know why-perhaps to ward off the suggestion-and found that I’d been stabbed, high in the bicep. “Hell!” Rolling over was an agony, but it let me confirm another flash of memory from the red haze of my battle-I’d been cut on the thigh too. “I’m worse than Ein is.” With the injuries I’d taken without knowing or remembering them, it was almost true. But Ein had a stab wound in his chest. One that bubbled and sucked with each breath out and in. The killing kind.

“He’s worse, Jal. And you can’t heal yourself. We know that.”

“I can’t heal anyone without half-dying myself. It’d kill me.” Though dying would at least stop each breath being a torture. My side had been filled with broken glass, I was sure of it.

“The magic is stronger here, Jal; you must feel it trying to break out? I can almost see it glowing in you.” An edge of pleading in his voice. Not for himself, never that, but for the last of his countrymen.